Republicanism: History, Theory, Practice

REPUBLICANISM

Books of Related Interest SCANLON AND CONTRACTUALISM edited by Matt Matravers TRUSTING IN REASON: MARTIN HOLLIS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL ACTION edited by Preston King THE PHILOSOPHY OF UTOPIA edited by Barbara Goodwin PLURALISM AND LIBERAL NEUTRALITY edited by Richard Bellamy and Martin Hollis THE ETHICS OF ALTRUISM edited by Jonathan Seglow HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL DIVERSITY edited by Simon Caney and Peter Jones TOLERATION by Preston King

Republicanism: History, Theory and Practice Editors

DANIEL WEINSTOCK CHRISTIAN NADEAU University of Montreal/Université de Montréal

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First Published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate London, N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, Oregon, 97213–3786 Copyright © 2004 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd Website: www.frankcass.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Republicanism: history, theory and practice 1. Republicanism—Congresses 2. Republicanism—History— Congresses 3. Republicanism—Philosophy—Congresses I. Weinstock, Daniel M. II. Nadeau, Christian III. Critical review of international social and political philosophy 321 .8′6 ISBN 0-203-49754-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-58457-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-7146-5593-7 (Print Edition) (cloth) ISBN 0-7146-8480-5 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Republicanism: history, theory and practice/edited by Daniel Weinstock and Christian Nadeau. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-5593-7 (alk. paper)— ISBN 0-7146-8480-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Republicanism. I Weinstock, Daniel M. II. Nadeau, Christian, 1969– JC421.R44 2004 321 .8′6–dc22 2003023032 This group of studies first appeared as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, ISSN 1369-8230, Vol.6, No.1 (Spring 2003) published by Frank Cass and Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Contents

Acknowledgements

vi

Introduction Daniel M.Weinstock

1

Citizenship and the Roman Res publica: Cicero and a Christian Corollary Elizabeth Depalma Digeser

5

On Public Speech in a Democratic Republic at War Barry S.Strauss

20

Montesquieu: Critique of Republicanism? Céline Spector

33

The Twilight of the Republic? Jean-Fabien Spitz

47

Discourse Theory and Republican Freedom Philip Pettit

62

Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom Charles Larmore

83

Non-Domination as a Moral Ideal Christian Nadeau

104

The Cosmopolitan Scope of Republican Citizenship Ryoa Chung

117

Patriotic, Not Deliberative, Democracy Charles Blattberg

134

Abstracts

151

Notes on Contributors

155

Index

157

Acknowledgements

The essays collected here all grow out of a conference on republicanism that was held at the Université de Montréal, and organized by the Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal in March 2002. That they are often quite distant relatives of the papers presented on the day is a testimony to the wealth of ideas and insights that were generated during the conference, and to the republican tradition’s great potential for enriching contemporary debates in political philosophy around questions to do with freedom, civic virtue, public deliberation, equality, and the like. The editors wish to thank David Robichaud and Patrick Turmel for their help in organizing the conference. Caroline Allard, Alex Sager, and Badr El Fekkak helped immensely with the preparation of the manuscript, and we extend our warmest thanks to them.

1 Introduction DANIEL M.WEINSTOCK

Republicanism has emerged in recent years as a full-fledged theoretical alternative to the normative political theories that have been at the centre of philosophical debates in the English-speaking world, such as liberalism, socialism and communitarianism. As formulated in Philip Pettit’s muchdiscussed book Republicanism, the theory is based upon an original understanding of political liberty and of its institutional requirements. According to Pettit, liberty should be understood as ‘non-domination’. Like the negative liberty famously discussed in Isaiah Berlin’s essay, ‘Two concepts of liberty’, republican liberty as construed by Pettit is concerned with removing obstacles to human activity. But unlike the conception of liberty favoured by Berlin, it emphasises potential obstacles to freedom as much as it does fully realised ones. According to this conception, a person is unfree when another can choose arbitrarily to interfere with her, and not only when that person does so choose. A number of important institutional implications follow from this conception of freedom. The essays collected in this volume aim to carry the project of developing republicanism forward in a number of directions. First, they aim to place Pettit’s influential theoretical proposals in a broader historical framework, one that provides us with a sense of the full extent of the conceptual repertoire that has been developed by the thinkers who have been taken as representatives of the republican tradition. Once we attend to the richness and complexity of the republican tradition, one realises just how many values and concepts have been seen at different times as central to thinkers who are fairly uncontroversially taken today as representatives of the republican ‘canon’. For example, take Elizabeth Digeser’s tracing of the continuities between the political writings of Cicero and those of Lactantius. It is commonly thought that the imperial period and the ending of the rule of the Senate marked the close of Rome’s republican experiment. However, Digeser shows that Romans in general, and Cicero himself, defined republicanism not according to the form of government, but according to the values and goals served by government, whatever its form. Justice and the common good are criterial for republican institutions according to both Cicero and Lactantius. Republicanism can on this

2 REPUBLICANISM

view survive regime transformation, so long as subsequent regimes continue to serve these values. Strauss argues that Athenian democracy, and its political and philosophical legacy, should also serve as one of the historical sources for modern republicanism. Strauss emphasises the importance of the public sphere and of public debate as characteristic of Athens’s contribution to our understanding of republicanism. In ways that echo with the contemporary importance ascribed to reasoned public speech and dialogue in the works of thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas and ‘deliberative democrats’ such as Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Strauss contrasts the impassioned, patriotic oration given by Pericles in the Peloponnesian Wars with the measured, humane contribution made by Diodotus in his debate with Cleon over the fate of the Mytileans. Strauss argues that republicanism requires the kind of public sphere that Diodotean wisdom makes possible. The contemporary revival of republicanism views the latter theory as being quite easily distinguishable from its liberal alternative. To revert once more to the rival understandings of liberty defended in both traditions, liberalism is in its most familiar incarnations centred upon the promotion of negative liberty. The primary goal of institutions in the liberal view is to provide citizens with the freedoms they require in order to lead their lives according to their own conceptions of the good. So citizens need a bundle of rights that ensure that their freedom will not be encroached upon in ways that make the realisation of their projects impossible. Republicanism focuses on a rival account of liberty, one that is perhaps paradoxically compatible with a greater degree of actual interference, as long as that interference is non-arbitrary. Looking at the relationship between republicanism and liberalism through a different lens reveals a more complex picture. Céline Spector focuses on a figure who has famously been taken to have adopted an ambiguous relation to the two traditions, namely Montesquieu. By concentrating on the traditional republican insistence on civic virtue, she shows that liberals and republicans can be taken to share common goals, to do with the promotion of the common good. By the eighteenth century, this had come to be equated with the creation of wealth and the promotion of prosperity. Liberals and republicans differed simply on the means most appropriate to pursue it. Certain sets of social and political circumstances make an appeal to virtue apposite, while others make reliance upon ‘hidden hand’ mechanisms more plausible. Again, as is revealed by Elizabeth Digeser’s essay, a central question that must be addressed has to do with whether republicanism should be identified by reference to a range of distinctive institutional arrangements that are desirable regardless of their consequences, or if, on the contrary, it should be equated with certain the ends and institutions evaluated by their capacity to serve them. Jean-Fabien Spitz’s paper focuses on the specificity of the French conception of republicanism. Drawing on the full range of historical sources constituting the French republican canon, Spitz argues that a concern with equality, and with the

INTRODUCTION 3

state’s role in promoting equality in ways that might seem heavy-handed to the Anglo-American temper, has always been central to French republicanism. This concern places the French tradition potentially at odds with more individualistic Anglo-American counterparts. A second set of essays addresses conceptual issues raised both by Pettit’s work and by the republican renaissance more generally. Philip Pettit’s own contribution to the volume develops and grounds the contrast between republican and liberal conceptions of freedom in a somewhat different manner than he did in Republicanism. Pettit shows that the republican conception is better able than the liberal to incorporate the insight drawn from discourse theory according to which one’s desires and beliefs ought to be amenable to modification in the light of the transformative impact of debate and discussion. Charles Larmore and Christian Nadeau both focus their essays on problems raised by Pettit’s conception of freedom as non-domination. Larmore argues that the idea of negative liberty central to the liberal tradition embodies a distinctive human good, that of being able to act unimpeded. That good must at times be traded off for the sake of other goods, but the republican eschewal of negative liberty hides this from view. Different conceptions of freedom are in Larmore’s view not really conceptual alternatives. Rather, they embody different, equally legitimate goods, none of which can pretend to ‘trump’ any of the others. Nadeau argues that there is a tension between Pettit’s consequentialism and his espousal of freedom as non-domination. A consequentialist should after all be concerned with maximising whatever value he views as being of paramount importance. Now, freedom as non-interference has the advantage of being at least in principle quantifiable in the appropriate way. The fewer obstacles there are to my being able to act as I wish, the freer I am. Freedom as non-domination does not lend itself as easily to a maximising logic, since it does not view freedom as threatened only, or even especially, by identifiable episodes of interference. Nadeau proposes a reinterpretation of the relationship between consequentialism and republicanism that vindicates Pettit’s view. Consequentialism in his view allows us, in a way that deontological theories cannot, to accept local infringements upon liberty that have as a net consequence to increase liberty overall. Finally, a third set puts republicanism in confrontation with other normative political theories. Ryoa Chung’s essay aims to assess the degree of compatibility between republicanism and the requirements of cosmopolitan citizenship. She argues that republicans are wrong to tie their conception of citizenship too tightly to nationalist accounts. On her view, republicans should be open to the idea that the proper locus for the exercise of the rights, privilges and responsibilities of citizenship evolve with changing economic and social circumstances. She then argues that the idea of contestatory democracy central to Pettit’s account, according to which the paradigmatic attitude of the republican citizen is watchfulness and readiness to contest laws and policies enacted by government,

4 REPUBLICANISM

can provide a helpful model through which to understand the way in which cosmpolitan citizenship might come to develop. Charles Blattberg’s essay criticises the conception of deliberation that republicanism as developed by Pettit seems to be connected with. (As we have seen, the connection is drawn even more tightly in the essay contributed by Pettit to this collection). In Blattberg’s view, deliberative democracy, as developed for example by Jürgen Habermas, relies to too great a degree on abstract rules supposed to govern deliberation and decision making. Aristotelian phronesis and hermeneutical interpretive charity are what are needed in conversation. This might be seen as in some measure a friendly amendment to the republican use of deliberative democratic theory. However, it leads to substantial disagreement when one considers that on the view of ‘patriotic’ deliberation espoused by Blattberg, conversation is an on-going process rather than one that issues in discrete decisions that can then be contested in an identifiably distinct moment by republican citizens. Taken together, these papers show that questions concerning both republicanism’s historical credentials and its conceptual core commitments will be at the centre of philosophical discussion for years to come. The authors have contributed greatly to the task of delineating someof the areas that stand in need of particular scholarly attention.

2 Citizenship and the Roman Res publica: Cicero and a Christian Corollary ELIZABETH DEPALMA DIGESER

The Roman people persisted in calling their state a ‘republic’ or res publica long after 31 BCE when the rule of emperors replaced that of Rome’s Senate. Such usage was neither wholly nostalgic nor anachronistic; rather, it suggests that Romans did not define their polity in constitutional terms. Instead, Romans from Cicero (106–43 BCE), Rome’s first political theorist, to Lactantius (fl. 299–315 CE), one of the first Christians to follow in the famous orator’s footsteps, defined a republic as a community of citizens bound together by justice and common interest. Should justice no longer flourish, then tyranny had supplanted the republic. An analysis of Cicero’s and Lactantius’ responses to the res publica in crisis, the former during the last decades of Senatorial rule in the first century BCE, the latter during the Great Persecution (299–313), will illustrate, not only the demands that such a definition placed upon citizens and government alike, but also the remarkable continuity in Roman political thought. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the first Roman with a talent for theorising to reflect upon what defined the republic and what that definition meant for his government and fellow citizens, lived during the crisis in leadership that characterised the last decades of senatorial rule. From the time Cicero first began to establish himself as a player in Roman senatorial politics to the treatises that occupied his last few years, this celebrated orator grappled with the problems of justice, the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and the health of his beloved res publica. These issues first came to the fore in 70 BCE when Cicero, as a young senator, took up the extortion case against Gaius Verres, who had recently served as governor of Sicily (73–71) (see Cicero 1928a:1:ix). Cicero’s discussion of Verres’s crime is the ‘most eloquent hymn to the liberty of the citizen’, according to Claude Nicolet (1980:321). Among the many crimes that Cicero lay at Verres’s door, one of the most serious involved denying due process to Publius Gavius of Consa, who had claimed to be a Roman citizen. Imprisoned in Syracuse’s stone-quarries for alleged involvement in a Spanish revolt (Cicero 1928a:2.5.27–8, 61–3), Gavius had escaped and fled to Messana, where he began to complain about how poorly the governor had treated him, as a citizen of Rome (2.5.61). Unfortunately for Gavius, Messana was full of Verres’s supporters (2.2. 46), who turned the man over to the magistrates and subsequently to Verres himself (2.5.62). Claiming that Gavius was a spy, Verres had the man publicly

6 REPUBLICANISM

flogged and then crucified (2.5.62). In narrating this story, although he suggests that Gavius was framed (2.5.62), Cicero was less concerned with Gavius’ guilt (2.5.64), than with the abrogation of his rights as a Roman citizen. As such, Gavius should have been immune from corporal punishment, even if found guilty in a fair trial (2.5.63, 66). ‘To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to slay him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is— what? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed’ (Cicero 1928a:2.5.66; see also 646 n. and 654 n.a). According to Cicero, Verres’s treatment of Gavius not only jeopardised the rights and freedoms of all Roman citizens; it also undermined the viability of the republic itself. All Roman citizens, Cicero suggested, were entitled to liberty (libertas) and justice (ius), where ‘libertas’, according to C.H.Wirszubski, denotes the ‘status of the individual as such’. Does freedom, that precious thing, mean nothing? Nor the proud privileges of a citizen of Rome?… Have all these things come in the end to mean so little that in a Roman province, in a town whose people have special privileges, a Roman citizen could be bound and flogged in the market place by a man who owed his rods and axes to the favour of the Roman people? (2.5.63, see also 2.5.61, 2.5.66–7 and Wirszubski 1968:3–4). Consequently, Roman citizenship should bring with it protection from arbitrary treatment. In fact, its protection was so great—at least according to Cicero—that it could command respect even outside the borders of the empire, presumably because the republic had been willing to defend its citizens’ claims to liberty and justice. Poor men of humble birth sail across the seas to shores they have never seen before, where they find themselves among strangers, and cannot always have with them acquaintances to vouch for them. Yet such trust have they in the single fact of their citizenship that they count on being safe, not only where they find our magistrates, who are restrained by the fear of law and public opinion, and not only among their own countrymen, to whom they are bound by the ties of a common language and civic rights and much else beside: no, wherever they find themselves, they feel confident that this one fact will be their defence. (2.5.65, see also 2.5.64) At the very least, these rights meant that Verres, as a magistrate whose authority was granted by the Roman people, should have stopped the proceedings as soon as Gavius voiced his claim to citizenship. ‘Could not that statement, that claim of citizenship, secure from you on your judgment-seat if not remission yet at least postponement of the sentence of death?’ (2.5.64, see also 2.5.63 n.3 and 2.5.65. 168). If Gavius’ citizenship could be verified—as Cicero suggested was easy to do— Verres should have reduced his sentence (2.5.65). All Romans should have

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 7

been offended by Verres’s unlawful behaviour for a number of reasons, Cicero argued. First, Verres undermined the rights of all citizens, not only because all citizens possessed the same privileges, but also because citizenship united all Romans as kindred, whether one was a Greek-speaking Sicilian or a member of the oldest family to hail from the city of Rome. It was not Gavius against whom your hate was then displayed:you declared war upon the whole principle of the rights of the Roman citizen body. You were the enemy…not of that individual man, but of the common liberties of us all… It was not Gavius, not one obscure man, whom you nailed upon that cross of agony: it was the universal principle that Romans are free men. (2.5.66) And: How must we be affected…when we hear of the anguish of our own kinsman? I say our kinsman, for we must recognise blood-kinship between all Roman citizens; truth, not less than concern for the general safety, bids us to do so. (2.5.67). Unlike the Greek concept, citizenship in Cicero’s view is clearly a matter of status and rights, not ethnicity or ‘worth’ (Buttle 2001:339–40). Second, Verres had undermined Rome’s empire: He had made travel to their provinces more dangerous for Roman citizens (including those who would govern there); he had jeopardised Roman power by suggesting to foreign states that Rome would not defend its citizens; and he had diminished the public space by making all travel and trade unsafe for Roman citizens. Take away this confidence, take away this defense from Roman citizens, lay it down that to cry ‘I am a Roman citizen’ shall help no man at all; make it possible for governors and other persons to inflict upon a man who declares himself a Roman citizen any cruel penalty they choose, on the plea that they do not know who the man is; do this, accept that plea, and forthwith you exclude Roman citizens from all our provinces, from all foreign kingdoms and republics, from every region of that great world to which Romans, above all other men, have always had free access until now. (2.5.65, see also 2.5.67.172) Finally, by neglecting its laws and treating Sicily like his private possession whose inhabitants were his slaves, Verres had undermined the republic itself. ‘A crushed and hopelessly defeated country will often resort to the disastrous expedient of…canceling the sentences pronounced in its courts of law. When this happens, everyone knows that the country (res publica) is tottering to its fall’ (2.5.6). And:

8 REPUBLICANISM

This place [where Verres crucified Gavius] with its view of Italy was deliberately picked out by Verres, that his victim, as he died in pain and agony, might feel how yonder narrow channel marked the frontier between the land of slavery and the land of freedom (libertas), and that Italy might see her son, as he hung there, suffer the worst extreme of the tortures inflicted upon slaves. (2.5.66) Even in the earlier stages of his career, then, Cicero had a clear conception of the rights and duties of citizenship and the dynamic relationship between citizenship and the health of the republic. A citizen of Rome was entitled to expect his government to grant him libertas and justice, on the one hand, and on the other, he was obliged to consider and treat all Roman citizens as his equals under the law and as his kin. For its part, the government of the republic—made up of citizens acting in an official capacity—must uphold these rights and obligations or risk dissolving into tyranny. Nearly 20 years later, Cicero fleshed out the dynamic relationship between the health of the republic and the rights of its citizens more formally in his treatises, De re publica and De legibus. Written in the mid 50s BCE, as the first triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus dominated political life in the city of Rome, these treatises unfortunately survive only in fragments (Cicero 1998:ix– x). Up until Angelo Mai’s 1820 discovery of a partial palimpsest, De re publica was known only through passages quoted in later authors (Cicero 1928b:9); of De legibus nothing survives beyond book 3 (Cicero 1998:xxiii). In De re publica, Cicero strove primarily to discern the best constitution for the republic, while De legibus spelled out the ideal legal system for such a regime. Referring to the earlier De re publica, Atticus at the beginning of De legibus (1.15) urges Cicero to write about law, since he had ‘already written a treatise on the constitution of the ideal State (de optimo rei publicae statu)’. In the process of writing the two treatises, Cicero defined what he considered a republic to be, and he linked this conception to the rights and obligations of Rome’s citizen body. According to Cicero, the ‘res publica’ was what an ‘assemblage of people in large numbers’ (i.e., the populus) held in common when it came together ‘in an agreement with respect to justice (consensu iuris)’ and ‘for the common good (communione utilitatis)’, regardless of the form of government adopted (Rep. 1.39, 1.41–42, my trans.; for this definition see also Wood 1988: 126–7). Such a conception imposed obligations upon government and citizens alike. Now, as 20 years before, Cicero continued to acknowledge the importance of libertas—this is the obvious implication of the mixed constitution that Scipio promotes in this dialogue (Rep.: 46–69 and Wood 1988:148–9); nevertheless he was more reluctant to glorify it, perhaps because he believed that libertas had run amok under the First Triumvirate’s populists (see his critique of democratic liberty in Rep. 1.43, 53, 67–8). He also still believed staunchly in a citizen’s right to justice (Rep. 3.43). Indeed, for Cicero, the government must preserve the ‘bond [s] of justice (vincula iuris)’ by ensuring that the law reflected natural law, which

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 9

he defined as ‘right reason consistent with nature,’ an ‘eternal and unalterable law’ whose ‘author’ was God, ‘the universal master’ —Est quidem vera lex recta ratio naturae congruens…(Rep. 3.33, trans. Keyes [Cicero 1928b] here and below). If this foundation disappeared, then—as he had suggested twenty years before—the state was no longer a res publica, but a tyranny: ‘Wherever a tyrant rules, we ought not to say that we have a bad form of commonwealth (res publica), …but, as logic now demonstrates, that we really have no commonwealth (res publica) at all’ (Rep. 3.43, see also Wood 1988:127). The guarantee of justice in a res publica also meant for Cicero that citizens would strive to uphold their responsibilities, namely to obey the law (Leg. 3.6). Since the foundation of the law was natural law, such obedience would involve both civic (3.5) and religious obligations (in this context it is important to note that Cicero dedicates De legibus 2 to a citizen’s religious duties). Justice, accordingly, was the lynchpin of the republic: when it was present the republic existed to protect the common interest and the obedience of the citizens was reinforced. Should justice be absent, ‘nothing belonged to the people (populus) and the people itself were the property’ of whomever controls the reins of power; there would be no republic (3.431), the force compelling citizens to obedience would have disappeared, and the regime would have descended into illegitimacy and lawlessness. Thus it is fair to say, that, although Cicero in the 50s was more concerned with a citizen’s duties and right to justice than he was with the right to libertas, he continued to maintain that the republic existed to promote and protect such rights and obligations or risk lapsing into tyranny. Roughly a decade after Cicero completed De re publica and De legibus, the elderly statesman fell victim to the brutal proscriptions effected by Julius Caesar’s heirs, Mark Antony and Octavian. Within another decade, the Caesarians had turned against each other, Antony was defeated at the Battle of Actium (31 BCE), and Octavian (who took the name ‘Augustus’ in 27 BCE) subsequently instituted a form of one-man rule that would prove viable for the next two centuries. Although these constitutional changes—to our eyes—seem to eclipse the republican institutions of Cicero’s day and before, Romans never left off referring to their state as a res publica, as we shall see. Moreover, Cicero’s constitutional treatises continued to be copied and read, even as Romans struggled in the third and early fourth centuries to address political, military and religious challenges that Augustus’s system was never designed to handle—these included a newly resurgent Persia, restless Germanic peoples on the Rhine and Danube frontiers, contests for rule between soldieremperors, and the increasing popularity of Christianity. De re publica, in particular, seems to have been very popular—not only among early imperial historians and moralists (e.g., Tacitus and Seneca), but also among later Neoplatonists (e.g., Macrobius) (Cicero 1998, ix–x, incl. nn.2–4). De re publica and De legibus, in fact, survived to serve as an inspiration to Lactantius, a Christian professor of rhetoric who—like Cicero—tried to make clear the roles and responsibilities of citizen and republic in the new period of crisis that was

10 REPUBLICANISM

the Great Persecution (299–313). Lactantius’ debt to Cicero is clear from the very beginning of the Divine Institutes, a seven-book treatise motivated by the religious and political questions that the persecution had raised (see DePalma Digeser 2000). References to contemporary events suggest that Lactantius wrote the Divine Institutes between 305 and 310 (see Heck 1972), but that between 310 and 312 he presented a revised version of this text to the court of the first Christian emperor, Constantine I (see DePalma Digeser 1994). From 306–311, Constantine ruled in the West, subordinate to the emperor Galerius. After Galerius’ death in 311, Constantine shared power with Licinius; from 324–337, however, Constantine ruled alone. The first chapter of the Divine Institutes links Lactantius’ project to Cicero’s De re publica and De legibus. First, Lactantius explicitly likens himself to ‘certain great orators’ who had devoted themselves to philosophy after retiring from public life (Inst. 1.1.11) —hich Cicero describes himself as having done (Rep. 1.7–8; Leg. 1.3). (Although Lactantius is the only source for some of De re publica’s fragments, his quotations, where they can be checked against an independent tradition [e.g., Inst. 6.9.6 and Rep. 1.2.3], appear to be accurate.) Next, Lactantius asks, if certain sensible men and judges of equity (aequitas) have set out institutes of civil law, how much better and more correct is it for us to publish divine institutes, in which we speak not of eaves (stillicidiis), or of preventing leaks, or of types of marriage, but of hope, of life, of salvation? (Inst. 1.1. 12; my trans. here and throughout) The educated public for whom Lactantius wrote would have quickly grasped the allusion to Cicero’s De legibus (and indirectly to De re publica) in the reference to the law on eaves. At the beginning of Cicero’s book, which takes the form of a discussion among friends, he asks what he should write about. ‘Am I to put together some books on the law of eaves (stillicidiorum) and walls?’ His friend Atticus answers, ‘since you have already written a treatise on the constitution of the ideal State (res publica), you should also write one on its laws’ (Leg. 1.15: Atqui si quaeris ego quid expectem, quoniam scriptum est a te de optimo rei publicae statu, consequens esse videtur ut scribas tu idem de legibus…). The allusion is not as obscure as it may seem to us. Lactantius held Cicero in the highest regard (e.g., Inst. 3.15.1) and quoted frequently from De legibus throughout the Divine Institutes (e.g., 1.15.23; 1.20.14, 19; 2.1.11–14; 2.10.1, 15; 2.11.1.). Moreover, readers in antiquity had an intimate rote knowledge of the standard corpus (to which Cicero’s works belonged) and were accustomed to the use of allusion to communicate an important idea that the author chose not to speak aloud (Harris 1989:185, 227, 251; Farrell 1991:11). Lactantius had not simply chosen at random from the works of Cicero but had selected treatises deeply committed to the preservation of the Roman republic: As we have seen, Cicero’s stated intention was to write on the ideal republic, a

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 11

project that De re publica began and De legibus completed (Leg. 1.5, see Ferrary 1995:49). (Other parallels also link the Divine Institutes with works of Cicero: both relied on religious law as a primary means of reform; both linked education tightly to reform of the state. See Mitchell: 1984:35.) The allusion to these two works suggests that, like Cicero, Lactantius was interested in exploring the legal and logical foundations of the ideal republic, but within a Christian framework. Like Cicero, Lactantius considered Rome, when properly governed, to be a res publica. As such, its primary function was to uphold justice, a responsibility made possible since natural law should provide the foundation for its laws. Should the state no longer dispense justice in accordance with natural law, then in Lactantius’ view—as in Cicero’s—the republic had dissolved into a tyranny. Like Cicero, Lactantius also believed that citizens in a republic had a right to justice; at the same time, they had civic obligations—primarily to obey the law. I will develop each of these points below. Lactantius’ discussion of the ideal Roman res publica is highly allusive and not the systematic discussion that Cicero had presented. Although such allusions may seem too esoteric to bear the weight that is placed on them here, it is necessary to remember that anyone who actively wrote against the current regime —especially anyone who questioned its very basis, as Lactantius was doing— would have been committing treason. As the twentieth-century political theorist Leo Strauss observed, ‘the influence of persecution on literature is precisely that it compels all writers who hold heterodox views to develop…the technique…of writing between the lines’ (Strauss 1952:24). Despite the allusive character of Lactantius’s prose, he still clearly shares the republican statesman’s concern that if the republic did not guarantee justice and promote laws founded on natural law then it risked dissolving into a tyranny. First, in the dedications to Constantine that Lactantius added to the second edition of the Divine Institutes, he referred explicitly to the Roman state as a res publica, and he indicated that the good government of Constantine has restored the state after the criminal reigns of his persecuting predecessors. Lactantius says (Inst. 1.1) that Constantine has restored justice, which had been ‘overthrown’ and he expresses the hope that Constantine may govern the state (res publica) with justice (see also 7.27.11). Next, in book 7 Lactantius developed the idea that Constantine’s antecedents, the emperors Diocletian (284–305) and Galerius (305–311), ruled tyrannically— a charge already hinted at in book 1. This accusation occurs in a description, ostensibly, of the days immediately before the end of the world, during which one emperor’s reign will be an ‘irrepressible tyranny’ (Inst. 7.16.3–4), but that of his successor will be worse (7.17.2–6). In these days, a very mighty foe from the outermost limits of a northern region who, after the three…who at that time possess Asia are destroyed, will be taken into an alliance by the [remaining kings] and will be set up as emperor of them all. This man, in his irrepressible tyranny, will harass the world… Finally,

12 REPUBLICANISM

after his name is changed and the imperial seat is transferred, the confusion and disturbance of the human race will result. (Inst. 7.16.3–4) One familiar with the history of Diocletian’s reign (284–305) would recognise that Lactantius is describing this emperor who was a ‘king’ from the north (Illyria), destroyed ‘kings’ in Asia (Carus, Numerian), was set up over other rulers (Diocletian was chief emperor in a college of four), moved the capital (to Nicomedia) and changed his name (from Diocles). The ‘second king, subverter and destroyer of the human race,’ who follows Diocletian is, consequently, Galerius, who ruled from 305–311 (see DePalma Digeser 2000:149–50). Further, the idea that the res publica should promote justice permeates the entire Divine Institutes: Not only does Lactantius claim that Constantine has restored justice (1.1.14), he also makes a passionate plea for the restoration of justice throughout book 5 (e.g., 5.13.17), and he indicates that justice prevailed in the res publica under the more benevolent reign of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. Again, due to its nature, this discussion is highly allusive and hinges on a contrast that Lactantius makes between the reigns of ‘Saturn’ and ‘Jupiter’. According to Lactantius, Saturn, like his son Jupiter, was a human being (1.11. 53). Because he did not deify his predecessors or himself, Saturn’s reign preserved a modicum of justice (1.11.51, 62; 5.5). The link between Saturn and Augustus is established through a citation of Vergil’s Aeneid. Lactantius also believed—with Cicero—that justice would naturally occur in a res publica founded on the principles of natural law. Unlike, Cicero, however, Lactantius’ interpretation of natural law was based on a Christian perspective. Indeed, Lactantius sought to translate Christian law into Roman terms. According to Lactantius, the ‘first principle’ of divine law is to know God, to obey and worship only the ‘author and ruler (imperator) of all’ (6.8.12; 6.9.1); the second is that man must join himself with his fellow man (6.10.2). The first law is equivalent to piety (pietas) (5.14.12)—which he often equates with cult (religio) (4.3.2; 5.14.7–11), the second to equity (aequitas) (5.14.15). In asserting that piety and equity—as he defined them—were the first two principles of divine law, Lactantius expressed in Roman terms the two commandments upon which the whole Christian law was based. When a lawyer asked Jesus, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ Jesus answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matt. 22:36–40). Lactantius’ identification of the first law with the knowledge of God becomes even clearer when one looks at the first commandment, upon which Jesus’

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 13

summary was based: ‘I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before me’ (Exod. 20:2–3; trans. NRSV; see also Buchheit 1979:362–3). The Romanisation and true significance of this Christian law is evident from the link with Cicero that Lactantius establishes here. In his Partitiones oratoriae Cicero said that both divine and human law reflected natural law, ‘the force of [divine law] being cult (religio) and that of [human law] being equity (aequitas)’ (37.129; ed. Wilkins 1902–3). He also believed that a law was just to the extent that it corresponded to natural law, which—as we have already seen—he understood to be both the law of God and the dictates of reason (Leg. 1.6; Rep. 3. 22). A comparison of Cicero’s definitions with those in the Divine Institutes reveals the connections Lactantius made between Roman and Christian law. First, by claiming that Christian law consists in piety or cult (religio) and in equity (aequitas), Lactantius equates the two principles of Christian law with Cicero’s two categories of Roman law: divine (concerned with religio) and human (concerned with equity). By doing so, he suggests that the Christian conception of divine law is synonymous with natural law, which Cicero claimed was the basis of divine and human law. Although he agreed with Cicero that true justice lay in upholding divine law, Lactantius thought that this could not be achieved unless one acknowledged the greatest God (Cavalcanti 1990: 61–2, Heck 1978:173–4). Lactantius intended his understanding of divine law to apply not merely to individuals but to the Roman res publica as a whole. He thought that during the persecution, under Diocletian and Galerius, true justice did not exist in the Roman state (Inst. 5.14.19), even though its leaders were seeking it (5.9.1). So long as evil existed, there would be a need for the state, but the only legitimate government would be one that acknowledged the One God and treated its citizens with equity (aequitas) (Inst. 6.9.7; 5.5.2; 5.8.4; 5.14.19). No other Christian author before Lactantius had drawn so heavily on Cicero to attempt such a thoroughgoing discussion of justice or so clearly postulated a Christian res publica whose foundation was based on a new understanding of natural law (Buchheit 1979:356; Heck 1966:69; Gonella 1937:33). Although the great thirdcentury theologian, Origen of Alexandria, had equated Christian law with natural law, he thought a society that adopted it would need no government (Cels. 5.37, 40; 8.70, see Salvatorelli 1920:333–47). Lactantius’ belief in the necessary existence of evil led him to be far less optimistic than Origen (Inst. 2.17.1–3); hence, his argument filled out the implications of a res publica founded on Christian law. Although jurists after Cicero had elaborated upon the republican orator’s understanding of natural law, many (most prominently the third-century jurist, Ulpian) had also more intimately identified the obligations of a Roman citizen as comprising loyalty to the Roman gods as well as to the laws (Gaudemet 1987; Crifò 1976). Hence, despite the basic similarity in the two systems of thought, developments in natural-law theory within Roman jurisprudence had not brought any immediate benefits to Christians living within the empire. In fact, their

14 REPUBLICANISM

situation had been made more difficult after 212 CE when the emperor Caracalla, desiring to ‘give thanks to the immortal gods’ and to ‘join the foreigners in applying to the religious observances of the gods’, offered to ‘all the foreigners…citizenship of the Romans’ (PGiss. 40.1). Although leading provincial families had acquired citizenship through individual grants, and so administered the cities and their environs as Roman citizens, most of the empire’s humbler residents, many of whom were now Christians —especially in the East—had not been enfranchised before; as citizens of individual cities, their ties were to local law and cult (Jones 1986:17; Barone-Adesi 1992:30–34; MacMullen 1984:32–3, 38, 135–6 n.26; Barnes 1989:308; Garnsey 1970:266; Hopkins 1998:202–3; Castelli 1998:244). One’s citizenship determined not only the law to which one was subject, but also, in part, the gods to whom one was bound. Thus the grant of Roman citizenship to all the empire’s free inhabitants had profound implications for Christians, who recognised this intimate connection between cult and citizenship. The early third-century Christian apologist Tertullian, for example, complained that ‘we outrage the Romans and we are not considered Romani, since we do not worship the gods of the Romans’ (Apol. 24.8, my trans.). Caracalla’s edict, then, went far beyond its stated intention. From a patchwork of cities and local systems of law, the empire became one giant civitas in which the privileges and obligations of citizenship bound one equally to Roman law and to Roman cult (Barone-Adesi 1992: 30–31, 36 n.10; Rives 1995:250). For Christians, this meant that after 212 whoever refused to worship the Roman gods could, in effect, be accused of treason. Moreover, Christians had, perhaps unwittingly, left themselves open to the charge of treason: not only did Paul claim that his true citizenship lay in heaven (Phil. 3:20), but Christians had also adopted various terms of sacred political association such as ekklesia (assembly) to denote themselves as a separate community subject to their own law (Clevenot 1988:1:108–11). Although some Christians such as the second-century apologist Justin frequently claimed to follow Roman law insofar as it did not conflict with their own (1 Apol. 12, 17), others felt that there could be no compromise between the Christian and Greco-Roman communities. Tatian, for example, described Romans and Christians as belonging to completely separate political communities (politeiai), and many martyrs—even before the Great Persecution— explicitly contrasted Roman law and God’s law (Afinogenov 1990:174; Ehrhardt 1959–69:2:85–8; Salvatorelli 1920:335). In Rome, as well as in Cicero’s De legibus (2), one’s dues as a citizen were paid in a currency for which loyalty to the laws of the res publica and to its gods were always obverse and reverse. And as a result of Caracalla’s edict of citizenship, emperors could require direct participation in the Roman cult as the definitive test. Twice before the Great Persecution, emperors had, in fact, asked something similar of all their citizens: first in the Decian persecutions of 250– 251, then those Valerian sponsored in 257–258. Diocletian and Galerius, the promoters of the Great Persecution, clearly thought that Christians were

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 15

incapable of assuming the obligations of citizenship. This is clear not only from the accusation, voiced during the persecution, that Christians had abandoned the counsel of jurists (Eus. PE 1.2.1ff.). It is also clear from the edicts of persecution and from Galerius’ eventual attempted repeal (since Maximin Daia, emperor in the East, continued to persecute until 313, Galerius’s measure did not in fact make the empire safe for all of its Christian citizens). The edicts implemented between 303 and 304 (Lact. Mort. 12.1,13.1, 15.4; Eus. HE 8.2, 8.5.1, 8.6.8–10) effectively stripped Christians of their Roman citizenship and indicate that Diocletian considered them to be outside Roman society (Kolb 1988:18–19). Galerius’s edict of 311 attempting to repeal the persecution discloses why the Christians were viewed in this way when he accuses Christians of having ‘abandoned the way of their ancestors’, and ‘by their own decision’ creating ‘for themselves laws which they observed’ (Lact., Mort. 34.2; my trans.). Since the dues of Roman citizenship were payable by obedience to Roman law and observance of Roman cult, in the eyes of the persecuting emperors, Christians had fallen short of citizenship’s obligations and thus deserved to be stripped of its privileges. Motivated by the efforts of the persecuting emperors to force their Christian citizens to uphold what they viewed as the responsibilities of Roman citizenship, Lactantius acted as Cicero had in an earlier constitutional crisis: he renewed the call to rethink the foundations of the Roman res publica. Thoroughly condemning the rule of the persecuting emperors as illegitimate, Lactantius instead stressed what he saw as the similarity between Christian law and the fundamental principles that Cicero and his successors had spelled out. In particular, Lactantius echoed the notion, articulated so eloquently by Cicero, that a citizen’s duties were primarily to worship and to obey the law. In modifying contemporary political thinking, he imagined a res publica under which Christians—and anyone else willing to revere the One God —could live as full citizens and under which polytheists would have nothing to fear. Lactantius’s claim that his monotheistic Christian conception of natural law conforms to Cicero’s notion responds directly to the assertion, voiced during the persecution, that Christians had abandoned the counsel of jurists. Indeed, Lactantius had intimately connected his theory of natural law with Cicero’s jurisprudence, and he asserted that this conception of law was the appropriate foundation for the res publica. His framing of divine law as simply embodying the commands to worship the One God and treat other Romans with equity clearly considers all Rome’s monotheists as full citizens. (While the conventional view once saw the Great Persecution as splitting Rome’s citizens into polytheistic pagans and monotheistic Christians, more recent scholarship has increasingly appreciated the number and influence of monotheistic or henotheistic pagans; cf. Barnes 2001:142–62 and Athanassiadi & Frede 1999.) Although Lactantius starts from the same assumptions as Ulpian and other imperial jurists, his more Ciceronian definition of natural law leads to opposite ends. He is in fundamental agreement that all Romans should live under the same

16 REPUBLICANISM

principles of justice; this inspiration must have guided his decision to take up the subject of natural law at all. And he concurs that a citizen’s fundamental obligations under this law involve both worship and obeying the law (Inst. 6.8.6– 12); indeed, the first dictate of his divine law is to worship the greatest God. Nevertheless, even in an ideal res publica where the divine law of the greatest God was understood as the guiding principle of Roman justice, Lactantius would not do what Decius, Valerian, Diocletian and Galerius had done. He would sever the link between public religious observance and good citizenship: taking inspiration again from a passage in Cicero, he would not muster the punitive capacity of the state to deal with impiety. Cicero believed that the gods should be approached chastely, ‘by people offering piety and laying aside wealth’; God would ‘punish the one who does differently’ (Leg. 2.8 in Inst. 5.20.3). Lactantius interprets Cicero to mean that a true deity would reject human coercion to obtain worship (5.20.5). On the contrary, Lactantius argues, force opposed the spirit of religion (5.19.7). ‘We put up with practices that should be prohibited’, he claims. ‘We do not resist even verbally, but concede revenge to God’ (5.20.9–10). Where several third-century emperors had interpreted refusal to worship the Roman gods as equivalent to treason, Lactantius was convinced that true religious beliefs could not be forced. Although he believed that Christianity was the only true religion, he also asserted that one who had not chosen this faith through the exercise of reason was useless to God (5.19.12–13). A return to the res publica, then, would—as in Cicero—return the populace to a condition of libertas in which deliberative reason could prevail. Accordingly, even polytheists would have their full citizen rights in Lactantius’s res publica. Thus, in response to the legal developments of the third and early fourth centuries, events that effectively ostracised Christians from the state, Lactantius proposed a Christian version of Cicero’s res publica, a polity under which all Romans could live as full citizens. Like Cicero’s res publica, this fourth-century version was designed to promote justice. Likewise, this new res publica would maintain Rome’s natural law tradition, with a monotheistic modification inspired again, in part, by Cicero. Moreover, for Lactantius as for Cicero it was patently clear that Rome’s res publica dissolved when its magistrates abandoned these foundations and chose instead to impose their will as tyrants. In terms of citizens’ rights under the res publica, Lactantius and Cicero agree that justice is fundamental. It is true that the Divine Institutes lacks either the passionate cry for a right to libertas that Cicero voiced in his Verrine Orations or the more muted acknowledgement of this right in the republican author’s later work. Nevertheless, it would not be hard to see Lactantius’ call for voluntas (or free will) in the choice of religion (5.19.8, 11) as at least compatible with Cicero’s conception of libertas. Finally, like his republican mentor, Lactantius sees the relationship between res publica and citizens as dynamic, in which the presence of justice in a state whose laws reflected natural law would naturally compel its citizens to fulfil their obligations in exchange for the recognition of their rights.

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 17

Drafted as a response to a religious and legal crisis, the ideal res publica that Lactantius envisioned in his Divine Institutes did not become the dominant conception of the Christian state that Rome bequeathed to the Middle Ages. In part, this is due to the fact that Lactantius had written in response to a particular situation whose potency gradually ebbed as Rome came increasingly to be ruled by Christian emperors and ultimately to outlaw other forms of worship by the late fourth century. After Constantine, only one emperor (Julian, 361–363) did not profess Christianity, and during the reign of Theodosius I (379–395) Christianity was made Rome’s only legal religion. To a greater extent, however, the decline in Lactantius’s fortunes was due to the tremendous influence accorded to Augustine, the next Christian to tackle the issue of the ideal state (see MacCormack 1997:672–3). Rejecting Cicero’s notion that the Roman state could ever have embodied justice before it became Christian (Civ. 19.21), Augustine’s City of God instead argued that pre-Christian Rome had instead been defined by its lust for domination (libido dominationis) and love of praise (amor laudis) (Civ. 2.14; 5.12). In thus rejecting any continuity between his earthly city, under its Christian monarch, and Cicero’s earlier conception, Augustine severed the ties that had bound the Christian to the Roman res publica. Not until the Renaissance would Lactantius’s view resurface in any important way. But then, at least, seduced by Lactantius’s delightful Latin, humanists began again to read not only the views of the ‘Christian Cicero’ (as Pico della Mirandola termed him) but also those of his republican mentor. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The discussion of Cicero and Lactantius here draws substantially on my discussion of the two in ch.2 of The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000). I am very grateful to Marguerite Deslauriers for her comments on a previous version of this essay. REFERENCES Afinogenov, D.J. 1990. ‘To whom was Tatian’s apology directed?’. Vestnik Drevnei Istorii, 192, 167–94. Athanassiadi, P. & M.Frede, eds. 1999. Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Augustine. 1955. City of God. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vol.41, Turnholt: Brepols. Barnes, T.D. 1989. ‘Christians and pagans in the reign of Constantius’. Dihle 1989: 301–43. 2001. ‘Monotheists All?’. Phoenix, 55, 142–62. Barone-Adesi, G. 1992. L’età della ‘Lex de’i. Naples: Istituto di Diritto Romano e dei Diritti dell’Oriente Mediterraneo.

18 REPUBLICANISM

Bonamente, G. & A.Nestori, eds. 1988. I cristiani e l’impero nel IV secolo: Colloquio sul cristianesimo nel mondo antico. Macerata: Università degli Studi di Macerata. Buchheit, V. 1979. ‘Die Definition der Gerechtigkeit bei Laktanz und seinen Vorgängern’. Vigiliae Christianae, 33, 356–74. Buttle, N. 2001. ‘Republican constitutionalism: a Roman ideal’. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 9, 331–49. Castelli, E.A. 1998. ‘Gender, theory, and The Rise of Christianity: a response to Rodney Stark’. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6, 227–59. Cavalcanti, E. 1990. ‘Aspetti della strutturazione del tema della giustizia nel cristianesimo antico (Lattanzio, Div. Inst. V–VI)’. In Atti dell’ Accademia romanistica Costantiniana: VIII convegno internazionale, Perugia. Cicero. 1902–03. Partitiones oratoriae. Ed. A.S.Wilkens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1928a. Cicero the Verrine Orations. Trans. L.H.G.Greenwood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1928b. Cicero. De re publica. De legibus. Trans. C.W.Keyes. New York: G.P.Putnam’s Sons. 1998. The Republic. The Laws. Trans. N.Rudd. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clevenot, M. 1988. ‘Le Double Citoyenneté: Situation des chrétiens dans l’Empire Romain’. in Mélanges Pierre Lévêque Mactoux & Geny 1988. Crifò, G. 1976. ‘Ulpiano: Esperienze e responsabilità del giurista’. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2.15, 708–89. DePalma Digeser, E. 1994. ‘Lactantius and Constantine’s Letter to Arles: Dating the Divine Institutes’. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2, 33–52. 2000. The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Dihle, A., ed. 1989. L’Eglise et l’Empire au IVe siècle: Sept exposés suivis de discussions. Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt 34. Ehrhardt, A.A.T. 1959–1969. Politische Metaphysik von Solon bis Augustin. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Eusebius of Caesarea. 1903.Praeparatio evangelica. Ed. E.H.Gifford. Oxford. 1903–1928. Historia ecclesiastica. Ed. E.Schwartz. Leipzig. Farrell, J. 1991. Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferrary, J.-L. 1995. ‘The statesman and the law in the political philosophy of Cicero’. Laks & Schofield 1995:48–71. Fontaine, J. & M.Perrin, eds. 1978. Lactance et son temps: Recherches actuelles. Paris: Editions Beauchesne. Garnsey, P. 1970. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gaudemet, J. 1987. ‘Tentatives de systématisation du droit à Rome’. Index 15, 79–96. Gonella, G. 1937. ‘La critica dell’ autorità delle leggi secondo Tertulliano e Lattanzio’. Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto, 23–7. Harris, W.V. 1989. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heck, E. 1966. Die Bezeugung von Ciceros Schrift De republica. Hildesheim. 1972. Die dualistischen Zusätze und die Kaiseranreden bei Lactantius: Untersuchungen zur Textgeschichte der Divinae institutiones und der Schrift De opificio dei. Heidelberg.

CITIZENSHIP AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA 19

1978. ‘Iustitia civilis—iustitia naturalis: A propos du jugement de Lactance concernant les discours sur la justice dans le De republica de Cicéron’. Fontaine & Perrin 1978. Hopkins, K. 1998. ‘Christian number and its implications’. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6, 185–226. Jones, A.H.M. 1986. The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey. (1st ed. 1964), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kolb, F. 1988. ‘L’ideologia tetrarchica e la politica religiosa di Diocleziano’. Bonamente & Nestori 1988. Lactantius, 1890–1897. Divine Institutes. Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol.1. Vienna. 1984. De mortibus persecutorum. Ed. J.Creed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Laks, A. & M.Schofield, eds. 1995. Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCormack, S. 1997. ‘Sin, citizenship, and the salvation of souls: the impact of Christian Priorities on late-Roman and post-Roman society’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39, 644–73. Mactoux, M.-M. & E.Geny, eds. 1988. Mélanges Pierre Lévêque. Paris. MacMullen, R. 1984. Christianizing the Roman Empire (AD 100–400). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mitchell, T.N. 1984. ‘Cicero on the moral crisis of the late republic’. Hermathena, 136, 21–41. Nicolet, C. 1980. The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome. Trans. P.S.Falla. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Origins. 1965. Contra Celsum. Trans. H.Chadwick.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rives, J.B. 1995. Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage: From Augustus to Constantine. Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press. Salvatorelli, L. 1920. ‘Il pensiero del cristianesimo antico intorno allo stato, dagli apologeti ad Origene’. Bilychnis, 333–52. Strauss, L. 1952. Persecution and the Art of Writing. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Wirszubski, C. 1950. Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Neal. 1988. Cicero’s Social and Political Thought. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

3 On Public Speech in a Democratic Republic at War BARRY S.STRAUSS

What sort of public speech is appropriate in a republic during time of war? For most of the past generation, this question has been merely academic but in the West today, particularly in the United States, it is all too real. Even a just war fought by just means raises a moral problem for a republic. The essence of good citizenship is reason, forged in individual decisions, and shared by communication. Good soldiers, by contrast, are required to risk their lives for the common good, and reason is not enough to convince men and women to die. How then, can a republic incite sufficient military ardor in its citizens without giving up its commitment to reason? How can it maintain calm and deliberate communication without sacrificing the passion needed to fight in self-defense? The history of the ancient republics of Greece and Rome is rich in data on war and rhetoric. In their heyday, city-states such as Athens, Rome and Sparta were at war as often as not (alas, not always fighting for a just cause or by just means). Furthermore, the citizen-soldier, ready to fight for his ancestral land in word and deed, was regarded as the ideal citizen. Here I turn to a case study in the history and theory of the democratic republic: classical Athens. I focus in particular on one of the greatest students and critics of public speech in that republic: Thucydides. Consider first a few brief words of introduction. I have argued earlier that the experience of ancient Greek democracy, best documented for the case of Athens, offers a friendly amendment to the Roman republican tradition revived by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner. To do so, I offer a revionist response to the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century critique of Athens as an example of degenerate democracy or mob rule. Rather, Athens was a democratic republic, moderate, law abiding, and generally well balanced between the interests of the many and the few. Athens put into action the principles of liberty, equality and communitarianism which modern theorists of republicanism advocate (Pettit 1997; Skinner 1998; Strauss 1999). George Grote, one of the greatest of modern students of ancient Greece, saw instead in Athenian democracy a moderate and sensible regime that justified the Liberals of his own nineteenth-century England. Surely Grote went too far— Pericles, after all, was not Gladstone. Yet Grote got the essential point right. Athens was far more moderate and less illiberal than is commonly asserted.

REPUBLICANISM 21

Dēmokratia—or ‘people power’, as ancient democracy called itself—was neither a fickle mob nor a plebiscitarian populism but rather a constitutional republic rooted in popular participation to secure popular interests according to an egalitarian ideology of liberty. Scholars have asked whether dēmokratia represents democracy or the rule of law and detected a purported trend in Athenian history from popular sovereignty to the rule of law but these dichotomies are overdrawn. Dēmokratia was committed to the rule of law because it recognised that the rule of law protected the interests of the poor as well as the rich (Ober 2000; Ostwald 1986; Roberts 1994; Sealey 1987; Strauss 1997). When considering the legacy of ancient Greece, we must distinguish, as does Rawls, between two theories of the ancient heritage. Civic humanists believe that public life is the highest moral and ethical calling: in the words of the trecento Florentine Coluccio Saluttatti, public life is ‘something holy’ and ‘to be followed both as an exercise in virtue and because of the necessity of brotherly love’. Classical republicans, by contrast, merely argue for citizen participation in public life in order to preserve a constitutional and republican regime (Rawls 1993:205– 6). Both classical republicanism and civic humanism have their roots in the Italian Renaissance. While classical republicans respect antiquity as a laboratory of selfgovernment they nonetheless reject any one-to-one application of ancient wisdom to modern life, with its radically changed conditions. So Guicciardini and Machiavelli. Civic humanists, however, tend to have faith in the direct lessons of the ‘noble Grecians and Romans’. Although the differences between dēmokratia and democracy are great, they are not so great as to exclude dēmokratia from relevance to students of contemporary politics. To be sure, radical changes in social scale since 1800 have attenuated relations between individual and the state, but arguably a dense network of civic associations can compensate for the loss of immediacy, by building the social capital that makes civic action possible. A modern, industrial city may exhibit more civic virtue than a traditional small town. Modern democracy is not so liberal as we would wish nor dēmokratia so illiberal as is often claimed: for example, no Athenian citizen lived with the daily dangers facing an inhabitant of an American urban ghetto. Nor did any Athenian metic (resident alien); slaves of course did risk physical insecurity. Nor should we exaggerate the burden of political participation for Athenian citizens. Theorists like Benjamin Constant have set the bar too high in imagining that the ordinary Athenian citizen normally devoted an enormous amount of his time to public life (Putnam 1993:114–15, 167, 171–3; Hansen 1989).1 Consider, for example, one of ‘the many’ (hoi polloi), those relatively poor citizens of Athens who were both staunch democrats and the bugaboo of the philosophers. If such a man lived in the countryside his lifetime public service might have consisted of nothing more than, say, spending one month in the Council, a few summers rowing in the fleet (in the fifth century BC naval service was voluntary, not conscripted), one year in the jury pool, and now and then attending a civic festival and a drama in

22 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Athens; had he lived in the city, sporadic assembly attendance might be added to the list. His wife might have now and then attended the Thesmophoria, an annual women’s festival that was organised along civic lines.2 Of course, some citizens ate, breathed and dreamt politics, and they were free to do so, but in Athens, as today, the degree of participation in public life varied greatly. In short, it is not impossible that dēmokratia be a useful model for students of modern democracy. Let us return to the question of public speech in a democratic republic during time of war. It is useful to begin with Arendt and Habermas. Arendt argues for a public sphere of openness, publicity, commonality, a realm that is sharply distinguished from the private sphere. The public sphere is a political realm, a place of shared communication and action. Marked by freedom, it offers the possibility of glory and even immortality through common memory. A knowledge of rhetoric is necessary in the public sphere, because persuasion is the method of decision making. For Arendt, it was the Greeks who invented this sphere. She writes: The polis, properly speaking, is not the city-state in its physical location; it is the organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its true space lies between people living together for this purpose, no matter where they happen to be. (Arendt 1998:198) Arguing that the modern age has lost the Greek notion of the public sphere, that it has subsumed the notion of the political in the notion of the social, Arendt seeks to revive it as the only way, in a secular world, to achieve, not merely freedom, but liberation from the self, to achieve the good life as opposed to mere life. In The Origin of Totalitarianism, Arendt offers the freedom of the public sphere as a bulwark against dictatorships that isolate groups from each other, that then incite them by propaganda, and finally turn them against each other murderously. And in Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt took part in the public sphere as a public intellectual, reporting for The New Yorker. Habermas too writes about the public sphere. Habermas (especially the early Habermas of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, first published in German in 1962) argues for a radical democracy in which citizen participation and radical participation are the keys. He is always looking over his shoulder at the dangers of Germany’s authoritarian and totalitarian past and peering with concern at the high-tech variants threatening western democracy in the future. Habermas argues against the electronically controlled, post-totalitarian public sphere that may now be emerging. ‘Once a public starts moving, it does not march in unison’. he states, ‘but rather offers the spectacle of anarchically unshackled communicative freedoms.’ He goes on to say that a ‘democratic mentality…can be formed only within the context of a free and combative political culture; it emerges through criticism and confrontations in the arena of a public sphere that has not lost heart, is still accessible to arguments, and has not been ruined by commercial television (Habermas 1997:144, 163–4).’

REPUBLICANISM 23

Given the stirrings abroad today, such concerns do not seem unfounded. Yet granting Habermas his analysis does not mean accepting his prescription, because when intellectuals go into the public sphere, bad things can happen. For every Habermas, whose championing of liberalism made him a hero to the generation of 1989 in Eastern Europe, there is a Carl Schmitt, the evil genius who, without repenting his opinions between 1933 and 1945, became the mentor of a postwar generation of West German conservatives—‘a secret prince in the invisible Reich of the German spirit,’ as one of them put it (Habermas 1997: 114). So too in antiquity. The Greek tyrants surrounded themselves with sages as well as poets and artists. The Sophists, with their corrosive relativism, taught rich and talented young Greeks that power was better than truth. Socrates sat out the civil war in Athens between democracy and oligarchy at the end of the Peloponnesian War. Aristotle supported Philip against the Athenians and advised Alexander to treat the conquered peoples of west Asia like natural slaves. Perhaps some academics should stick to their books. Yet given their relative expertise in rational analysis and in pedagogy and given their advantages of leisure and discursive community, intellectuals have something indeed to contribute to public space. Theirs is the time-honoured job of helping to teach the people to let reason prevail. Once an academic takes on the role of a public intellectual, she is no longer speaking ex cathedra. She cannot treat the public like sheep or schoolchildren or the members of an orchestra waiting for the conductor; she cannot engage in the kind of behaviour that Xenophon’s Socrates imagines on the part of a political leader: ‘Ah, I am aware of that’, answered Socrates; ‘but the disposition of our city is now more to a good ruler’s liking. For confidence breeds carelessness, slackness, disobedience: fear makes men more attentive, more obedient, more amenable to discipline. The behavior of our sailors [or rowers: nautai] is a case in point. So long as they have nothing to fear, they are, I believe, an unruly lot, but when they expect a storm or an attack, they not only carry out all orders, but watch in silence for the word of command like choristers.’ (Xenophon Oikonomikos 5.5–6) When she speaks to the public, an intellectual does so as part of the public—as a citizen first and an intellectual second. Her intellectual and pedagogical expertise is merely the card that she plays in a role in which she is otherwise no better than any other citizen, just as culinary expertise is the card that a citizen cook plays and sanitation expertise is the card that a citizen garbage-hauler plays. As a matter of justice, therefore, an intellectual ought to dispense the fruits of her expertise with modesty and with a minimum of egotism. The emphasis should be on the ideas and not the messenger. Because of its emphasis on political equality,

24 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

a republic should see a given citizen’s expertise in this or that as an accident, a gift of birth or luck. Modesty in a public intellectual is also politic, because the public distrusts individuals who claim special virtue and who, by implication, demand special reward. Classical Athenian literature, for example, is full of suspicion of the proud, from the execution of Socrates to the ostracism—that is, exile from Athens for ten years—of Aristeides the Just on the grounds that he was putting on airs by allowing himself to be called ‘the Just’. The Athenian orator Cleon (d. 422 BCE), Thucydides’ bête noire and Aristophanes’ and Aristotle’s arch-demagogue, makes the classic attack on the public intellectual in the name of populism: Unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted insubordination; and…ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their wit in more important matters, and by such behavior too often ruin their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and intellectual rivalry to advise the people against our real opinions. (Thuc. 3.37.3–5) Cleon is one of the more memorable rogues in Thucydides’ gallery. Yet his speech narrowly fails (Thuc. 3.49.1). Indeed, in Thucydides, famous speakers often fall short of persuading the audience. For example, Archidamos, king of Sparta, has his advice rejected by the Spartan assembly in favour of the shadowy ephor Sthenelaidas (1.79.2–88). Athenagoras, leader of the people, scores points in the Syracusan assembly against the lesser-known orator Hermocrates, but his recommendation is dismissed and reversed by an unnamed general (6.32.3–41). The most eminent orator of all, Pericles, successfully persuades the Athenian people to reject a Peloponnesian ultimatum (1.139.4–145). His call for patriotic sacrifice in his famous Funeral Oration, however, is made a mockery of by Athens’ social breakdown during the so-called plague that follows, while his call for steely resolve in his last speech wins grudging acceptance of his policy but the imposition of a fine on him (later withdrawn: 2.34–24, 59.3–65.4). By contrast, one of the more effective orators in ancient literature is one about whom we know the least: Diodotus, son of Eucrates. He ekes out a narrow but decisive victory over Cleon and minimises the punishment inflicted on the people of Mytilene for having stabbed Athens in the back by revolting during the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 3. 36–49). It is heartening for opponents of the cult of oratorical personality to consider how many of the orators of Thucydides are unnamed: from the respective representatives of Corcyra and Corinth who address the Athenian assembly in

REPUBLICANISM 25

433 to the Athenian envoys who speak at Sparta in 432/431 (1.72–8) to the Mytilenians who address the Spartans at Olympia in 428 to obtain their help in a revolt against Athens (3.8–15) to the Thebans who address the Spartans in 427 in favour of the death penalty for the captured defenders of Plataea (3.60–68) to the Athenians and Melians who speak in the so-called Melian Dialogue of 416 (5.84. 3–112). Of course, these speakers had names, and they were probably known to their audiences, but Thucydides’ failure to name them entitles us to think that they were not superstars. Is the notion of a republican public sphere anti-professional? Yes, to a degree, because it demands that professionalism be balanced with citizenship. Does that amount to an attack on rhetoric, as Stanley Fish would have it? No, because even unvarnished, homespun truths are rhetorical. Democrats should neither try to abolish rhetoric nor want to. Rhetoric is the art of communication and communication is the essence of the public sphere, as Arendt has it. Republicans aren’t against rhetoric but rather against illiberal rhetoric in the public sphere. They are against rhetorical tricks, manipulation and fever-pitch appeals to the crowd. They are against Leni Riefenstahl and Pravda, against media conglomerates and sound bites, against Beltway Bandits and The Wise Men, against closed communications markets and managed news, against pundits and spin doctors, against poll-driven politics and focus groups, against sixty-second spots, subliminal messages and stentorian voice-overs (Fish 1989). What then, are advocates of republican rhetoric for? In regard to the public intellectual, they support a rhetoric that draws on the intellectual’s advantages— in education, theoretical sophistication, cosmopolitan outlook, leisure and sometimes intelligence (though many academics underestimate the intelligence of lay persons)—in order to engage in speech that makes her work intelligible to a lay public without talking down to it. They are in favour of rhetoric that simplifies without distorting, that popularises without debasing, and that spells out without sneering. Republican rhetoric needs to balance what Aristotle calls democracy’s two fundamental elements, liberty and equality (Politics 1317a40–bl6). Lincoln said much the same thing when he described the Union in a speech of 1864 to the 148th Ohio Regiment: ‘Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality’ (Lincoln 1989: 626). Republican rhetoric should balance the liberty of a few people to push ideas to their limits with the equal claim of all people to engage in communication that incorporates the fruit of those ideas, once those ideas have been put into the public sphere. Republican rhetoric should aim at as simple and unadorned a style as circumstances permit. Republican rhetoric can take a leaf from the book of classic prose style as described by Turner and Thomas in their Clear and Simple as the Truth. ‘Classic prose is pure, fearless, cool, and relentless’, say Thomas and Turner (1994). Addressed to the intelligent non-specialist, it knows what it wants to say and does so directly. It is clear, simple, focused and assured. Classic prose is not necessarily democratic—one of its masters is Thucydides—but in

26 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

the hands of a republican, it can be a stunning vehicle for communication: another of its masters is Jefferson. Republican rhetoric should make a virtue of what aristocratic critics, from Thucydides to Tocqueville, have castigated democracy for, that is, its preference for self-interest to honour. They allege that democracy is down to earth where aristocracy is refined, craft oriented where aristocracy prefers in-grained and hereditary virtue, self-interested where aristocracy is magnanimous, money conscious where aristocracy is disdainful of mere lucre. Democratic republicans know that there is some truth in these charges, but they wear them as badges of honour, knowing that ordinary people, unlike coupon-clippers, cannot attain the good life unless they pay attention to improving the conditions of mere life. Republican rhetoric, therefore, ought to be down to earth. Since the common people cannot afford to take economics for granted, neither should it. Unwilling to concede the superior virtue of a prince to a shoemaker or an exterminator, democratic rhetoric must speak in terms intelligible on the shop floor. Recognising that it is reasonable for the people to wonder about its self-interest, it must address that subject too. All of this might lead the sophisticated to assume that the people are pushovers, willing to fall for any fast-talking promises by self-appointed watchdogs of the public interest. But the people know a bloodhound from a wolf: consider that staple of ancient thought, the ingrained cunning of the simple folk. Homer’s Eumaios or Eurykleia—respectively a swineherd and nurse in Odysseus’s Ithaka —might have nodded knowingly at the judgment of the so-called Old Oligarch, a scathing critic of classical Athenian democracy, who conceded that vile and vulgar as it was, the Athenian common people knew what was good for them. A case in point is the response to the comic playwright Aristophanes’s argument in his Frogs (405 BCE). The poet frets over the lot of Athenian oligarchs exiled after the failed anti-democratic coup six years earlier in 411. He compares them with Athenian slaves who, after serving as emergency rowers in the Athenian victory at sea at Arginusae in 406, had been not merely freed but made citizens. Aristophanes argues that if Athens treats slaves so well, then it should a fortiori restore citizenship rights to exiled oligarchs. Coming forward in the play’s parabasis (that is, digression by the chorus in the name of the author), the poet states: Sin and shame it were that slaves, Who have once with stern devotion fought your battle on the waves, Should be straightaway lords and masters, yea Plataeans fully blown3— Not that this deserves our censure; there I praise you; there alone Has the city, in her anguish, policy and wisdom shown— Nay but these, of old accustomed on our ships to fight and win, (They, their fathers too before them), these our very kith and kin,

REPUBLICANISM 27

You should likewise, when they ask you, pardon for their single sin. O by nature best and wisest, O relax your jealous ire, Let us all the world as kinsfolk and as citizens acquire, All who on our ships will battle well and bravely by our side. (Frogs 691–702, tr. B.B.Rogers) The poet’s rhetoric passes the test of democratic public discourse: it is clear, simple, rational and focused on the public interest. Unfortunately, it is unconvincing. Slaves were likely to defend democracy both out of gratitude for enfranchisement and out of principle, because of democracy’s reputation for relative leniency toward slaves (though not so much leniency that abolition was ever considered). The oligarchs might be grateful for their pardon, but they were unlikely to give up their principled hostility to democracy. Home again, they might work to make Athens less egalitarian. The people were not fooled. They made short work of Aristophanes’ argument. The exiles stayed abroad until after Athens’s surrender to Sparta in 404 BCE, when they returned and some took part in the oligarchy of the Thirty, whose name became a watchword for terrorism and tyranny. So we have a game of civilized thrust and parry, a tale of sensible debate in the public sphere. Now, a critic might say, that is all well and good, but we live, to cite Cicero, not in Plato’s Republic but in the sewer of Romulus. False consciousness exists, and plenty of people are willing to exploit it with nothing like Aristophanes’ scruples about good behavior in the theatre of Dionysus. While the virtuous republican public intellectual is playing Horatio at the bridge, he is going to be run over by the legions of Rupert Murdoch—or, far worse, of Mussolini or Hitler or any of the other tyrants who have taken power legally in democracies. Should our public intellectual go down singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ and congratulating himself on his good intentions? No, he should not. Yet how is he to protect himself against rhetoricians who pull out the stops, whether in words or on the shadowy screens of new information technology? Not by fighting fire with fire. We don’t need flamboyance, we don’t need verbal pyrotechnics, we don’t need saints, we don’t need bards. What we need is a gray and diligent public speech workers who eat their spinach and commit clear and modest acts of communication. It sounds uninspiring and it is. Inspiration is dangerous in the public space. We need to defend ourselves against rhetoric’s traditional role in defense of the indefensible. Historically, the ultimate task of the orator is to heat the already warm blood of young men to the boiling point, in order to get them to die on behalf of the rest of the community. Afterwards come the funeral orations, and they are invariably inspiring. On closer look, of course, these pied pipers of death are serving up nothing other than elderly rubbish to an apathetic grave, as Auden said. Give me rhetoric and give me death.

28 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

That is precisely the problem with Pericles. Many, including Cynthia Farrar and Harvey Yunis, see him as Thucydides’ ideal of a political leader: wise, incorruptible and a great communicator, he educates the Athenian people in the rule of reason. Yet as other commentators as disparate as W.R.Connor and Leo Strauss have pointed out, Thucydides’ portrait of Pericles is open to an ironic reading: for all his foresight, Pericles failed to imagine the suffering of the Peloponnesian War, while his call for blind love of country opened the door to the passions that destroyed Athens. I have argued that Pericles’ patriarchy proves to be his undoing, for he neither provided a successor nor cultivated the qualities among Athenians that might allow them to survive him. And then there is Auden’s horror at Pericles’ inspiring call to arms (Farrar 1988; Yunis 1996; Connor 1989; Strauss 1977). Yet if Pericles is not the model, who is? Rather than answering democracy’s opponents in kind, the democratic rhetorician needs to mount a two-front counter-attack. First, he needs to support efforts to create a public space that permits free and equal communication. A large and growing scholarly literature exists on the debate over various efforts to do just that, and others, with more expertise than the present writer, discuss those efforts.4 Let us turn here, instead, to the second front of the counter-attack, that is, to the rhetoric with which a democratic orator should respond to demagoguery. Ever since M.I.Finley’s attack on the misuse of the term ‘demagogue’ by critics of Athenian democracy (joined by, among others, W.R.Connor in his analysis of the Athenian ‘new politicians’ and Donald Kagan in his rehabilitation of Cleon), the demagogues have enjoyed new prestige among ancient historians. And deservedly so: the record needed to be set straight. But that doesn’t turn the demagogues into philosopher-kings (Finley 1974a; Connor 1971; Kagan 1975). The surviving rhetoric of democratic Athens, whether as represented by Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle or as more directly recorded by the Attic orators or their editors, is full of inspiration. It is also full of rhetorical tricks, logical fallacies (from ad hominem to tu quoque), character assassination, flights of fancy and, as Danielle Allen has recently demonstrated, of hot blood. In short, it is full of precisely those things that impede reasoned deliberation by the people. Athenian oratory is at best only a limited model for the republican orator (Allen 2001). Yet that does not mean that it is without positive lessons—that it is only a cautionary tale. For all its faults, as a corpus, Attic oratory does a remarkable job of bringing important issues to the attention of the ordinary citizen, without condescension or obsequiousness (as Yunis discusses). Nor do the faults in its oratory mean that Athens was not a democracy. As Josh Ober has argued, the arguments of the orators were subjected, in addition to counter-attacks by other orators, to the intensive scrutiny of the Athenian people. By serving as the watchdog of its own interests, by asking tough questions, by keeping a tight rein on the orators, the Athenian people saw to it that debate in the public sphere was, on the whole, moderate and rational. As George Grote argued long ago, Athenian

REPUBLICANISM 29

democracy amounted not to mob rule, as ancient and modern critics have charged, but to a regime that amassed an overall record over more than two hundred years of relatively prudent and sensible public decisions. Keep in mind as well the conclusions of the anthropologising or Mediterranean Studies school of ancient historiography. Despite some excesses, this school has demonstrated the power of honour and shame, of violence and repression, of misogyny and androcentrism, in short, of primitive survivals of all sort in Athenian culture. Classical culture was neither therapeutic nor, when it comes to the frank and enlightened confrontation of the irrational, canonical. We can do better today. Or at least we can hope to. Instead of responding to outrageous rhetoric with counter-outrage, the public intellectual in a democratic republic should respond with cunning reason. Thucydides provides an example of just what this might mean. Let us return to the aforementioned pair of speeches of 427 BCE in which the orators Cleon and Diodotus reopen the debate on a previous decision by the Athenian assembly to massacre every male Mytilenian as punishment for Mytilene’s treacherous wartime revolt. Diodotus’s tactics are worth our attention, and so is his audience. Diodotus’s speech is not a work of philosophy: its aim is persuasion, not truth. Farrar and Ober have each criticised the shortcomings in the speech, from leaps in logic to imprudence to mudslinging. They argue convincingly that Diodotus is hardly Thucydides’ ideal. Modern readers, however, are entitled to dissent from Thucydides’ judgment, and might reach a higher estimation of him. In regard to criticisms of his oratory, Diodotus in effect protests innocence; his words, he says, are no rhetoric but merely ‘plain good advice’ (Thuc. 3.43.2). This, of course, is a pose: there is nothing plain about Diodotus’s canny words. Yet the differences with Cleon’s stemwinder are striking. While Cleon summons up moral outrage, Diodotus calls for pragmatism. While Cleon champions anger, emotion and first impressions, Diodotus praises unemotional reflection. While Cleon demands justice, Diodotus avers that expediency is more in order. While Cleon talks about settling scores, Diodotus gives a seminar in deterrence theory (concessions to the guilty now will buy off future malcontents, he contends). The irony, of course, is that Diodotus is rattling the cage of an arch-hawk. Cleon advocates brutality, while Diodotus wants a ‘soft’ punishment of Mytilene: the execution of the guilty rather than of every male Mytilenian (the guilty turn out to be no less than 1,000 men, out of a total male citizen population of, to make a ballpark estimate, 10–20,000). Yet Diodotus takes Cleon’s right flank by beating him at the game of realpolitik. The seemingly offhand use of the words ‘most terrible’ (ta deinotata, 3.43.2) to describe Cleon’s proposal gives Diodotus’s game away. In the end, Diodotus narrowly defeats Cleon. Most of the Mytilenians are spared. This is a democratic decision, in three ways. First, it is a triumph for reason in public space over demagogic manipulation and emotionalism. Second, it is a

30 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

decision that values the life of the ordinary person, even though he be a foreigner and so, by Athenian standards, outside of the charmed circle of privilege.5 Third, it is a decision whose implementation depends on the goodness and decency of the ordinary Athenian. It does so perhaps in two ways, the first of which is demonstrable, the second, speculative. Diodotus himself might be an ordinary Athenian. We know nothing of him outside of Thucydides. At any rate, Thucydides’ silence about Diodotus, compared to his introduction of Cleon as a man of utmost violence and popularity (3.36.6), might suggest that Thucydides makes of him a kind of Athenian Everyman (Yunis 1996:92). The second, more speculative point comes from a detail, revealed by Thucydides, that after the first assembly had decided to slaughter the Mytilenians, an Athenian galley set out to bring the news to the Athenian commander in Mytilene, a distance of about 184 sea miles away. It would have reached the city in time if not for two factors. One was the speed of the second warship, sent out after the revised vote, whose rowers were plied with the ancient equivalent of Gatorade and Power Bars by the Mytilenian embassy. The second factor was what amounted to an act of civil disobedience by the rowers of the first ship: they staged a work slowdown. At least that is what I would like to read into Thucydides’ statement that the first ship ‘made no haste on so monstrous, inhuman an errrand’ (kai men tês proteras neôs ou spoudêi pleousês epi pragma allokoton tautês de toioutôi tropôi epeigomenês, 3.49.4). At a minimum, this statement shows the initiative of a single Athenian ship’s captain (trierarch); at a maximum, it shows the agency of the humblest of the humble, the 170 rowers of a galley. Consider the source of the decency of the ordinary Athenian: nothing other than the equality of Athens’ republican regime. Because their service of rowing in the fleet taught humble Athenians to value each other and to equate their contribution to the polis with that of an elite Athenian’s, ordinary Athenians acquired respect for ordinary people elsewhere. Note that equality is highlighted by Pettit as a characteristic of republican regimes (Pettit 1997:126). There is no contest between Diodotus and Cleon, but could there possibly be a case for Diodotus’s superiority to Pericles as well? Both men respond to irrationality in public space, but Pericles does so by turns thundering like Zeus from Olympus and singing like the Sirens. Modest and forgettable in his character, Diodotus fights demagoguery with rhetorical tricks of his own, by they are mild in comparison to the opposition’s tactics. His favoured mode of analysis is reason, and it underlays his speech. In the end, however narrow his victory, he makes his case successfully. As we consider stepping into the public sphere, we humanists might hold before us the image of Diodotus rather than that of Pericles. Savvy but scrupulous, dedicated to reason and democracy but never naive about what it takes to fight its opponents, a speaker of plain but sharp rhetoric, a modest and not altogether inspiring personality, a mysterious and secret teacher who appears

REPUBLICANISM 31

when needed and then vanishes again after having seemed to have asked nothing in return, all but as anonymous as the people whom he serves—Diodotus is a figure whom we humanists might contemplate as we prepare to come down from our monastic mountains and join the fray below. To sum up, this essay offers a way for public speakers to help a democratic republic steer a middle course during a time of war. It recognises the need both for republican militancy and for democratic humanity. It suggests that the very equality of republicanism will foster the sympathy that undergirds the latter while promoting the fraternity required by the former. It calls for public speakers to employ cunning rhetoric to guide the public: a rhetoric that is restrained and unemotional, realistic and hard-headed, yet also decent and principled. It calls for a rhetoric that is perhaps clearer than it is simple. Call it a Machiavellian moralism, if you will, or perhaps, it should be called Diodotean wisdom. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Danielle Allen, Cynthia Farrar, Melissa Lane, Christian Nadeau, Josiah Ober, Philip Pettit, and Daniel Weinstock, for helpful comments on and friendly dissent with earlier drafts of this essay. NOTES 1. For an argument for the disjunction of ancient Greek and modern republicanism, see Rahe (1992). 2. It is unclear whether metic (resident alien) and slave women attended the Thesmophoria but certainly on the level of discourse the festival was conceived of as a matter for citizen women. 3. The slaves were admitted to Athenian citizenship on the same terms as Plataeans in 427 BCE, that is, they were entitled to all citizen rights except the right to hold certain priesthoods and the chief magistracy. 4. For an introductory survey, useful if dated, see Scott London (1995:33–55). 5. On the preservation of life as a value of ancient democracy, see Strauss (2000: 27ff.).

REFERENCES Allen, D. 2001. The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Arendt, H. 1998. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Connor, W.R. 1971. The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1989. Thucydides, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Farrar, C. 1988. The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The invention of Politics in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

32 PUBLIC SPEECH IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Finley, M.I. 1974a. ‘Athenian demagogues’. Finley 1974b: 1–25. ed. 1974b. Studies in Athenian Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Fish, S. 1989. Doing What Comes Naturally, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Flensted-Jensen, P., T.H.Nielsen & L.Rubinstein, eds. 2000. Polis & Politics. Studies in Ancient Greek History. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. Habermas, J. 1997. A Berlin Republic. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. Hansen, M.H. 1989. Was Athens a Democracy?: Popular Rule, Liberty and Equality in Ancient and Modern Political Thought. Copenhagen: Commissioner, Munksgaard. Kagan, D. 1975. ‘The speeches of Thucydides and the Mytilenian debate’. Yale Classical Studies 24, pp.71–94. Lincoln, A. 1989. Speeches and Writings, 1859–1865, New York: Library of America. London, S. 1995. ‘Teledemocracy vs. deliberative democracy: a comparative look at two models of public talk’. Journal of Interpersonal Communication and Technology, 3/ 2, 33–55. Morris, I. & K.Raaflaub, eds. 1997. Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges. Archaeolocal Institute of America, Colloquia and Conference Papers, No.2. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Ober, J. 2000. ‘Quasi-rights: political boundaries and social diversity in democratic Athens,’ Social Philosophy and Policy, 17/1, 27–61. Ostwald, M. 1986. From Popular Sovereignty to the Rule of Law. Law, Society and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Putnam, R.D. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rahe, P.A. 1992. Republics Ancient and Modern. Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Rawls, J. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Roberts, J.T. 1994. Athens on Trial. The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sealey, R. 1987. The Athenian Republic. Democracy or the Rule of Law? University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Skinner, Q. 1998. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, B. 1997. ‘Genealogy, ideology, and society in democratic Athens’. Morris & Rauaflaub l997:141–54. 1999. ‘Civic service, citizen soldiers, and a more democratic republic’. Unpublished paper. 2000. ‘Democracy, Kimon, and the evolution of Athenian naval tactics in the fifth century B.C.’ Flensted-Jensen et al. 2000; 315–26. Strauss, L. 1977. The City and Man, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thomas, F.-N. & M.Turner. 1994. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yunis, H. 1996. Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

4 Montesquieu: Critique of Republicanism? CÉLINE SPECTOR

The opposition between liberalism and civic humanism has been the subject of fruitful scholarly debate, since the work of H.Baron, Q. Skinner and J.G.A.Pocock.1 The ambition of J.G.A Pocock’s book The Machiavellian Moment is clear: by putting these two distinct hermeneutical paradigms to work, it seeks to transcend the hegemony of liberal historiography. The shortcomings in the liberal vocabulary of individualism, which examines the possessive individual in relation to other possessive individuals and considers questions of justice under the guise of the protection of rights, must be mitigated by the use of the language of civic humanism. Civic humanism, or republicanism broadly conceived, does not see the curtailing of power, the problem of individual security or the right to rebel as its fundamental problems. Rather, it is essentially concerned with the corruption of virtue. In the writings of authors belonging to what J.G.A Pocock labelled the tradition of civic humanism, liberty is threatened when citizens’ autonomy, which is guaranteed by the ownership of arms and land, is no longer secure. In these critical ‘Machiavellian moments’ of history, civic virtue is threatened by the forces that endanger its survival, be it fortuna in the Renaissance or finance, credit and commerce in the eighteenth century. The Neo-Harringtonian continuation of the tradition of civic humanism in England— a tradition limited up to that point to the small Italian republics of the thirteenth and fourteenth century—focuses these republican fears around the new economic expansion and its instruments: in the wake of the financial revolution, the new mobile means of access to power, by introducing the reign of money into politics along with the government of passion and of the imagination, undermine the martial spirit of independence and patriotism with which the survival of the republic is identified. The mobility of ownership, which dominates the new mercantile societies, is detrimental to the expression of virtue and renders the ideal of the citizen/soldier obsolete. According to this line of thought, the tradition of English republicanism is no longer associated with the restoration of the ancient republican model where the people as a body politic exercised power. Power is now subordinated to a new vision of constitutional monarchy that might invigorate civic virtue once more, a virtue without which the unceasing struggle between competing factions and interests risks casting the state adrift towards corruption and decadence.

34 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

Beyond this purely British debate, the place of Montesquieu in the confrontation between republicanism and liberalism has been the subject of controversy. All sides seem to seek his seal of approval, and to situate his work at the centre of the tradition which they are advocating. Thus, according to J.G.A Pocock, Montesquieu is the thinker who set the classical science of virtue to work in the eighteenth century. Judith Shklar, basing her claims on the American experience, argues that Montesquieu did for the second part of the eighteenth century what Machiavelli had done for the Renaissance, namely, set the terms of discussion for republicanism. As for Isaiah Berlin, the Esprit des lois establishes the liberal creed, and, since Thomas Pangle’s work, numerous other scholars have adopted this position. However, the opposition between Montesquieu the liberal and Montesquieu the republican seems a little extreme. Does this mean that we should follow Pocock’s view that Montesquieu’s project to find the material conditions for virtue in merchant societies is essentially paradoxical? According to Quentin Skinner, the central question concerning the relationship of the interest of the nation and those of individual citizens has been addressed in two principal ways in modern political theory. The first focuses on the efficiency of institutions and of the ‘invisible hand’, and the other bases itself on the high principles and public spirit of the rulers—Hume is seen as the main representative of the first path, and Machiavelli and Montesquieu incarnate the second one. As we will see, this antagonism can be transcended if we pay close attention to the political theory developed in the Esprit des lois. The Description of the Republic in the Esprit des lois and the Republican Tradition The description of the republican vivere civile in the first books of the Esprit des Lois testifies to the important ties that exist between Montesquieu and the tradition of ‘civic humanism’ as understood by Pocock and Skinner. The theory of the republic presented in his description of the different types of government relies on several arguments used in favour of civic life since the Florentine preRenaissance. At the level of institutions, the analysis of the ‘nature’ of democracy shows the prevalence of the Aristotelian and Ciceronian heritage: the greatest legislators have gained their reputations by limiting the anarchist tendencies inherent in democracy, by giving deliberative and judiciary powers to the people, and by restricting governance to an elite. Moreover, at the level of customs, Montesquieu borrows from Machiavelli and his predecessors the idea that the nature and the principle of government are joined together by a dialectic linking good laws and good customs. Thus, the survival of republican institutions can only be achieved through patriotic sentiments. This justifies the prevalence of the principle or dominant passion which sustains the ‘nature’ of the government: ‘Once the principles of the government are corrupted, the best laws become bad and turn against the state; when their principles are sound, bad laws

REPUBLICANISM 35

have the effect of good ones; the force of the principle pulls everything along’ (Montesquieu 1950:VIII, 11).2 To this first movement that proceeds from customs to laws one must add a second that progresses in reverse (at least in the case of democracies— aristocracies are a more complicated case), where the laws must also promote virtuous customs. The fifth book of the Esprit des lois stresses juridical and material conditions: the love of equality and of frugality is rooted in the effective existence of these two realities which are in turn based on agrarian and inheritance laws. Legal conditions remain insufficient if they are not backed up by institutions that educate and police customs. Censorship is central in this case. The censors have a crucial role to play since they are endowed with the protection of the ‘depository of the mores’ (‘dépôt des moeurs’). Montesquieu describes their task in the following terms: ‘They must re-establish all that has become corrupted in the republic, notice slackness, judge oversights, and correct mistakes just as the laws punish crimes’ (Montesquieu 1989:IV, 4–8). This unceasing supervision is supposed to lead to an internalisation of the right norms by the citizens who are not expected merely to comply with the external aspects of the law. The example of the Aeropagyte— where a child is put to death for having blinded his bird—is appealed to by Montesquieu: ‘Notice that the question is not that of condemning a crime but of judging mores in a republic founded on mores’ (Montesquieu 1989:V, 19). Whereas in a democracy vices must be punished, in a monarchy private crimes and misdemeanors can flourish in the shadow of the law without threatening the state. The description of virtue offered by Montesquieu is similar to that provided by the Ciceronian humanists. It is a kind of virtue that requires self-abnegation and denial of one’s interests. Such a feat can only be achieved through the ceaseless moral policing that we have alluded to earlier: ‘lt is not only crimes that destroy virtue, but also negligence, mistakes, a certain slackness in the love of the homeland, dangerous examples, the seeds of corruption, that which does not destroy them but weakens them’ (Montesquieu 1989:V, 19). The survival of democracy in the face of the threatening historical forces presupposes a continuous and public exercise of moral judgment that makes citizens conform to a set of common rules, thus maintaining the public morality upon which the security of the republic is based. The importance attributed to customs appears in the role ascribed to them, as a complement or even as a replacement for laws, in the make-up of the body politic. When the agrarian laws are unable to establish a certain equality of wealth, customs supplant the legal failure. The institution of a pyramidal chain of subordination anchors political discipline in a moral bedrock. The subordination of the young to the old, of children to parents, of wives to husbands sustains the authority of the senate. In a democracy this conservation of hierarchical obedience is paramount to the survival of the state: ‘much is to be gained by keeping the old customs’ (Montesquieu 1989:V, 7). The corruption of the republic occurs precisely in the moment where public values lose their legitimacy in the face of an emerging individualist moral order.

36 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

This is the first conclusion to which the analysis of books II to X of the Esprit des lois leads. The major borrowings by Montesquieu from Aristotle’s Politics, which he reads in the light of Machiavelli’s Discourse, shows the extent of his use of what has been called the republican tradition. For Montesquieu, republics are regimes in which isonomia is based on eunomia: namely, where the equal participation in political power is founded on a good customary order. What matters is not so much the participation of the entire people in the government— Montesquieu is convinced that the body politic is incapable of such an undertaking, and must therefore elect magistrates—but the inclusion of all in a vivere civile characterised by homogeneous aspirations and communal customs. The preeminent role given to the conservation of civic practices is reiterated in the special attention placed on frugality, which must be maintained by sumptuary laws. Mobility, due to the increase of wealth and private pleasure that it encourages, must be banned: the expansion of luxury and the escalation of private passions (such as ambition and greed) can only bring about corruption and the dissolution of the social bond. Although, in the Considérations, Montesquieu claims that the heroic virtues and martial discipline of the Romans survived well into the imperial age of luxury and corruption, he does not deny the classical analysis which sees cowardice as being a direct result of luxury. Similarly he does not question the superiority attributed to Roman poverty over Carthage’s opulence. More important than the decline of the military virtues, the decline of the vivere civile is associated with luxury, which translates into the particularisation of interests the moment when citizens come to dissociate their individual aspirations from glory of their country: So far as luxury is established in a republic, so far does the spirit turn to the interest of the individual. For people who have to have nothing but the necessities, there is left to desire only the glory of the homeland and one’s own glory. But a soul corrupted by luxury has many other desires; soon it becomes an enemy of the laws that hamper it… As soon as the Romans were corrupted, their desires became immense. When everyone, by a common impulse, was carried to voluptuousness, what became of virtue? (Montesquieu 1950:VII, 2) To this traditional critique of the weakening of martial virtues one must add, particularly in the Persian Letters, a moral and social critique of conspicuous consumption: by blurring the lines of distinction in the ‘natural’ hierarchy, luxury enables each and every person to seek public acknowledgment based on wealth rather than birth or action. Deploring the corruption induced by John Law’s system, the Persian nobles will insist on the pernicious effects of the ‘confusion of ranks’ brought about by luxury (Montesquieu 1950: Lettres Pers. XCVIII, CXXXVIII, CXLVI). Montesquieu’s views are here closer to those of Bolingbroke and his followers than to the humanist tradition as such. Associated with the rise of commerce and

REPUBLICANISM 37

finance, luxury appears to be the reverse of virtue, a constant threat to its integrity; it seems to fulfill the role usually attributed to fortune: a factor of social mobility and inconstancy that arouses passions and imagination. Faced with the defense of merchants, seen as the heroes of modern times, and in reaction to the rehabilitation of private interest conducted by the court (partisans of Walpole, Defoe and the London Journal), doesn’t the Country Party—in the manner of Fenelon and the Dukes’ party in France—defend hierarchy and the social order threatened by the new elite of merit and money? Does it not deplore this new elite which is not content only to speculate on movable goods, but manages to repurchase noble lands and menace the balance of property on which the ancient constitution rests? History is used in this polemical debate as a rhetorical tool; references to ancient Roman history in particular are meant to show the imminent decadence of England caused by the disturbance to the balance of power between the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Luxury is seen by the Tory historians of 1730 as the source of the phenomenon which robbed the landed interest of its power and privilege in favour of the moneyed interests, whose supremacy threatened the very foundation of patriotism and love of country. As a remedy, Bolingbroke argues for a return to the principles of the Constitution: moral reform must accompany the return to power of the natural elites whose autonomy can only be warranted by landed ownership. The condition of a politics that transcends factionalism resides in the restoration of the ancient values that were abolished by luxury and other nefarious aspects of the financial revolution. By paying close attention to the adverse consequences of particular interests caused by luxury, Montesquieu in the Esprit des lois pleads for a return to the principles of virtue: ‘When a republic has been corrupted, none of the ills that arise can be remedied except by removing the corruption and recalling the principles; every other correction is either useless or a new ill’ (Montesquieu 1989:VIII, 12). A Paradigm Shift The apparent proximity between Montesquieu and the British NeoHarringtonians ought not to hide the deep divergences in their respective positions regarding the interpretation of history and the irreversible evolution which distances, in his eyes, republic and monarchies, and, to a certain degree, the ancients from the moderns. By regulating republics to a distant past—that of the ancient cities—the author of the Esprit des lois clearly takes a position against the possibility of a ‘return to principles’ which would permit reviving the corrupted virtue. Regarding to question of whether, in absence of morphological conditions and materials which characterise the ancient republic, good mores can still prevail, the response of the Esprit des lois is unambiguous: the analysis of political virtue recognises the incompatibility between the governing of a people as a body politic that presupposes the subordination of the private interest to the common benefit and the conditions that enable the existence of a modern

38 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

society. The development of commerce in the great European states defined by a society ridden with vice and inequality seems to condemn the republic to corruption: The political men of Greece who lived under popular government recognised no other force to sustain it than virtue. Those of today speak to us only of manufacturing, commerce, finance, wealth and even luxury’ (Montesquieu 1989:III, 3). Because it ‘corrupts pure morals’, the development of commerce seems to be incompatible with the conservation of virtue. Against returning to the republican tradition, Montesquieu opts to transcend the antinomy between virtue and commerce and tries instead to underline the compatibility between the spirit of commerce and virtue: both of them share a common self-discipline, the repression of personal passions by the individual— citizen or merchant—under a general rule. The modern commercial republics, then, can recover virtue: in the small states that exercise the ‘commerce d’économie’ (transport), the frugal virtue of the merchants leads to an identification of personal interest with that of the public. Virtue and commerce no longer oppose one another and the possibility for an altogether new path appears for modern republics (Montesquieu 1989:V, 6; XX, 4). The break with the republican tradition is also exemplified by the rejection of its conception of freedom, rooted in the importance of citizens’ political participation. Following Locke, Montesquieu defines liberty as freedom regulated by law. The theory presented in Book XI of the Esprit des lois enables the emancipation from the republican topos: the people’s freedom is not ‘power in the people’s hands’ but security under the law. A citizen can be seen as free when he enjoys a certain peace of mind that springs from the perception he has of his own safety, when he lives without the fear of oppression from others or from the state. In this sense the Republicans confuse political freedom and philosophical liberty: political freedom does not consist in doing whatever we wish, but to be able to do that which we should want to do, all the while not being compelled to do what we should not want to do (‘ne pas être obligé de faire ce que 1’on ne doit pas vouloir’, Montesquieu 1989:XI, 3). Indeed, a free population is not one which is submitted to this or that type of rule but one which enjoys the rule of law: ‘Democracy and aristocracy are not free states by their nature’ (Montesquieu 1989:XI, 4). In the face of the permanent risk of the abuse of power, freedom depends on the distribution of power within the state, which protects the constitution, and on safeguarding the citizen from arbitrary abuse, which entails the protection of his rights. Should we then conclude that, far from adopting the republican vocabulary, The Esprit des lois puts it to use in order to subvert its substance and to demonstrate the absurdity of a moral republic given the nature of modern commercial societies? Private Vice, Public Virtue The critique of the vocabulary of civic humanism can be seen in the use of ancient Roman history in the Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des

REPUBLICANISM 39

Romains et de leur décadence, as well as in the Réflexions sur la monarchie universelle, where Montesquieu demonstrates the absurdity of imitating the Roman imperial model due to the evolution of the art of war. From a military standpoint, the incidence of wealth and luxury has changed the situation: the variations in strategy and equipment have turned poverty’s advantage—martial asceticism—into a handicap. Luxury is no longer the cause of the decline of empires; on the contrary, it is the source of its greatness, especially in a time where power is measured in commercial wealth, not territorial possessions. The road explored by Montesquieu in the ‘querelle du luxe’ (the quarrel on luxury) enables us to distinguish him from the supporters of ancient virtue and the followers of the humanist tradition. In the great states where land ownership is uneven, the abolition of the luxury would lead to an economic and demographic decline. Indeed, the suppression of superfluous spending would induce a shortage of revenue for the lower classes and would constitute an impediment to growth. Following Mandeville and Melon, Montesquieu admits that, in a monarchy, the principle that converts private vices into public virtues and moral vices into political virtues is at work. The corruption of mores must be overlooked if vanity and cupidity are to serve national interest (Montesquieu 1989:XIX, 5–9). Where the arts of pleasure and the empire of taste are at the root of wealth, the legislator must let the nation do what it pleases for the sake of the state’s economic power. The conservation of different types of government is regulated by autonomous and sometimes contradictory principles: ‘republics end in luxury; monarchies, in poverty’ (Montesquieu 1989:VII, 4). Thus, the modern path is clear: Athens is to be preferred over Sparta. If virtue is the price that must be paid to achieve economic success, a price readily accepted in the Esprit des lois, then the function of the law is not to regulate morality. This position dismisses the admirers of ancient simplicity and their obsessive concern for moral decay. Far from being incompatible with political freedom, luxury is in fact in accordance with it. The threat to liberty comes now from the desire for moral discipline: from those who want to abuse the power of law to violently reform the habits and mores of a given society by imposing a ‘tyrannie d’opinion’ (a tyranny of opinion). This is the cost of the reverence and awe for the ancient model. The peril that confronts most European states is not the transition from republic to monarchy but the change from monarchy to despotism due to the abolition of the intermediary powers and to the subservient nature of the courtiers. Luxury is not a threat for traditional or constitutional monarchies; and it certainly is not a threat to the viability of the state: the dynamic inherent in the desire to distinguish oneself sustains the obedience to the Prince, while maintaining public freedom. Moreover, the very definition of honour fits into the Mandevillian scheme with self-interest resulting in an outcome that is beneficial for the whole society; Adam Smith will later depict this phenomenon using the image of the ‘invisible hand’. Because individual ambitions can unintentionally and unknowingly have positive outcomes for all, politics in monarchies can do without virtue: The state continues to exist independently of the love of the

40 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

homeland, desire for true glory, self-renunciation, sacrifice of one’s dearest interests, and those heroic virtues we find in the ancients and know only by hearsay’ (Montesquieu 1989:III, 5). Thus, for Montesquieu the republican warnings concerning the mixing of virtue and commerce are valid in the context of ancient history, but only for military republics These warnings lose all their relevance in the case of modern monarchies. The threat of commerce and its negative influence on political liberty becomes obsolete. Furthermore, the modern forms of power offer no basis for fearing the perverse influence of luxury on individual courage and ‘manliness’. Finally, the analysis of the conditions of liberty, dissociated from political virtue and active participation in the exercise of political power, undermines the republican will to return to original principals by prohibiting luxury. The Question of Public Credit The issue of public credit enables us to further distinguish Montesquieu from the tradition of civic humanism. The early recourse to public debt in order to finance the upkeep of permanent armies and the management of recurring wars gave birth to a heated debate concerning the use of public funds in England. The institution of the credit system and the birth of the financial revolution are controversial issues. Walpole’s opponents claimed that the loss of a stable and solid vivere civile was coextensive with the invention of new financial instruments and the development of commerce. Bolingbroke even wrote an essay on the tragic consequences of the public debt: for him, the abolition of the debt is seen as the preliminary condition for the regeneration of the country under the guidance of a Patriot King. The increase of public debt renders the government dependent on a class of professional creditors. The criticism leveled by the Country Party goes beyond the traditional notion that sees money as an inherent corruptor of the ruling class. Rather, it is directed at the epistemological foundations of a society organised around financial exchanges and investments, a society where artifice and deceit take pride of place. In Machiavelli’s terminology the personification of credit under female traits echoes the instability of fortuna. Against the attacks of the Country Party, the supporters of the new financial tools attempt to show the possible conversion of irrationality into rationality, of credit into confidence, of imaginary goods into real goods—as long as the government’s practices and the political situation enables it. In this context, the Persian Letters seem to carry forward the criticism of bank credit along the same lines as the Country Party. The fear of corruption motivates the main characters in this satire of the Regency years. Rica condemns the foreigners who destabilise the state by enabling the acquisition of massive fortunes: ‘God creates men out of nothing and with no greater expedition. How many valets are now waited on by their fellows, and may tomorrow be served by their former masters!’ (Montesquieu 1989: Lettres Pers. CXXXVIII). This myth

REPUBLICANISM 41

exhibits the fears many harbour before the reign of profit with its plethora of moral, political and social subversions. The corruption of a people, very much like the demise of a corrupt minister, seems to derive from an exorbitant propensity for speculation. The threat posed by the new financial system is, at a deeper level, a fear of the extremes to which human nature, deluded by an illusory project and guided by passion and imagination, will go. The ‘fragment from an ancient mythologist’ recounted by Rica humorously depicts the tragic process by which three fourths of national wealth disappears: ‘Be ruled by me: leave the land of the base metals; come into the empire of the imagination, and I promise you riches which astonish even you’ (Montesquieu 1989: Lettres Pers. CXLII). Similarly in Adison’s Spectator, J.Law is represented as one of the sons of Eolius, a merchant of hot air. He entreats the Betic people to give up their old belief in precious metals and to follow him in the land of imagination and wealth. The language employed in these political parables echoes the Augustan polemic engaged in England. But the position of Montesquieu in the Esprit des lois is much more ambiguous. On the one hand, he seems opposed to the principle of public credit, going as far as to reject the objection voiced by Hume concerning the economic advantages of a public debt (Montesquieu 1989:XXII, 17–18; 1955: p.1221). On the other hand, Montesquieu seems to abandon a direct critique of the public debt and settles instead for a mitigated defence of its use and benefits within the context of contemporary England. The influence of the constitution on British mores enables the conversion of credit into confidence in a given political situation. This phenomenon defines the singularity of a ‘free nation’: This nation would have secure credit because it would borrow from itself and would pay to itself. It could happen that it would undertake something beyond the forces natural to it and would assert against its enemies and immense fictional wealth that the trust and the nature of its government would make real. In order to preserve its liberty, it would borrow from its subjects, and its subjects, who would see that the credit would be lost if it were conquered, would have a further motive to defend its liberty. (Montesquieu 1989:XIX, 27) The ‘country’ problematic (from Bolingbroke and Cato’s letters) is henceforth reversed. The transformation of imaginary and irrational goods into rational and tangible benefits is accomplished by way of the government’s nature: it is the love of freedom that is at the root of the transformation of chimeras into economic realities with strong political implications. Thus, public credit gains strength through the judgment of subjects. They seek to preserve the credit of their nation and ensure it can be trusted, so it can exercise a powerful role in the concert of nations. The double determination of credit is once again based on a theory of judgement. However, this judgement itself is not based on fully warranted appraisals of the government’s virtue. On the contrary, it is based on

42 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

illusory data—the nation venturing beyond its natural reach, following its desires and passions instead of its interest—and these data are supported, because of certain political qualities, by a virtuous circle based on confidence. How does truth come out of deceit, how does illusion become reality? In other words, what is the face of this new cunning of reason? Montesquieu bases this magical power on the free passions and the financial system. Against Hume’s view, the expansion of credit cannot have the same consequences in France and in England, because the passions operate in two distinctly different systems. The transformation of credit into confidence cannot take the same form in a monarchy regulated by honour and intermediary classes and in a republic hiding behind a royal mask. The whims of honour are the French equivalent of the English fantasies of credit. They are just another trick of reason, just another conversion of inconstancy and passion into a vigorous economic tool of political power. In this context, far from being opposed to liberty, commerce seems to be one of its catalysts. Montesquieu shows to what extent commerce— under its many possible guises, including both cultural and material exchanges—brings about great benefits. The boorish nature of the soldier/citizen is tamed by the multiple communicative exchanges implied by commercial activities. Political and military violence is restrained by the development of self-interested rationality. Thanks to the tools of nomadic commerce, the international character of exchanges becomes an impediment to the abuse of power and contributes in this way to the security of goods and persons. The mobility of property, criticised by the republicans, becomes the main obstacle to the extension of despotism. This is the meaning of the praise of ‘doux commerce’ (‘gentle commerce’) in the Esprit des lois. Commerce eases and civilises the mores, and thus contributes to peace and to political freedom (Montesquieu 1989:XX, 1–2; XXI, 20). In this light, liberty is no longer defined as non-interference (of any power within spheres that do not concern it) but as non-domination (from any type of arbitrary threat). In a word it is the liberty of the moderns. The British Constitution and the Partisan System. In the context of this praise of commerce and finance, one must clarify the exemplary status of the British model. England is described by Montesquieu as a ‘nation where republic hides under the form of monarchy’ (Montesquieu 1989:V, 19). In the absence a specific principle, and in particular in the absence of honour and virtue, personal interest seems to be the only ruling passion. The question one must ask then is: what are the chances that a nation in which intermediary powers and the principle of honour have disappeared will remain free? From this point of view the analysis, the British constitution seems to owe much to the Neo-Harringtonian movement. Indeed, Bolingbroke has already suggested that the king, the Lords and the House of Commons fulfil separate political duties, and that this separation of powers creates checks and

REPUBLICANISM 43

balances. Bolingbroke voices this opinion in the Craftsman: ‘In a constitution like ours, the safety of the whole depends on the balance of the parts and the balance of the parts on their mutual independency on one another’ (Bolingbroke 1735:211). This excerpt resulted in a polemical debate with a journalist from the London Journal.3 In the Spicilège, Montesquieu includes quotations from the Craftsman: ‘Government is good when laws naturally produce virtue and can even make bad men become good ministers.’ But the influence of Bolingbroke on Montesquieu ought not to be overestimated. While the author of the Esprit des lois accepts certain parts of Bolingbroke’s theory, he also distances himself from other important dimensions of it, and most notably, from the criticism of Walpole’s government on the basis of its corruption and lack of patriotic virtue. For Montesquieu, British political life functions properly because of the constitutional oppositions, relayed by partisan opposition. Indeed, within a representative system, the upheaval of passions and factions does not constitute a threat to freedom. Virtue and good morals are no longer necessary. The fear of corruption that was still present in his other writings such as Notes sur l’Angleterre is less pronounced in the Esprit des lois. For Montesquieu, corruption does not represent a real danger for the stability of the regime. When his English correspondent, Domville, questioned him about the length of time served by the average British government and the ill-fated influence of corruption, Montesquieu answered by merely reminding him of the spirit of freedom which exists among the people. Even if the magistrate and the representative are corrupt, the constitution will be preserved as long as the general public preserves its love of freedom. Montesquieu’s last words on the British commercial society are that ‘England, in the future, could well be the last standing nation in Europe with regard to freedom’ (‘le dernier soupir de la liberté sera poussé par un Anglais’) (Montesquieu 1955:1245). The triumph over corruption seems to be the main benefit of free and pluralistic societies—the freedom of the press plays a crucial role in this context—a type of society where anyone can pursue their activity and desired goals without being submitted to the arbitrary will of others or fearing the dictate of civil and religious authorities. Montesquieu’s criticism against the Neo-Harringtonian theses is clear. However, it does not enable us to conclude that Montesquieu subscribes completely to a purely liberal theory—one that sees the free nation as a type of polity in which the representative system exonerates the citizens from any sort of political participation. The liberal opposition between positive and negative liberty, between political autonomy and the enjoyment of rights without interference, must be transcended. This point is confirmed by the Esprit des lois (book XIX, chapter 27) which states that even if direct participation in the exercise of power is not necessary to the existence of liberty, a certain level of civic involvement and public awareness is needed. The citizens, within the state, are first and foremost concerned with the elaboration of laws: ‘As in a free state, every man, considered to have a free soul, should be governed by himself, the

44 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

people as a body should have legislative power’ (Montesquieu 1989:XI, 6). However, their role is not restricted to this single dimension; their general awareness must be heightened and focused on any possible abuse of power. Politics, far from being forgotten by individuals absorbed by their private affairs, is still the main object of concern: If the climate had given a restless spirit and a broad view to many people in a country where the constitution gave everyone a part in the government along with political interests, one would talk much about politics; one would see people who spent their lives calculating about events, which, given the nature of things and the caprice of fortune (that is of men), are scarcely subject to calculation. In a free nation it often does not matter whether individuals reason well or badly; it suffices that they reason; from that comes the liberty ant protects them from the effects of these same reasonings. (Montesquieu 1989:XIX, 27) Montesquieu’s reasoning overlaps here with Bolingbroke’s analysis concerning the necessary zeal and passion for freedom that enabled the British people to maintain their government’s principles.4 The philosopher has already mentioned that the ‘100 eyes of Argus’ never completely closed, which, in England, fulfils an equivalent role to honour in the French monarchy. Furthermore, the balance of power between the political parties is also regulated by public awareness: ‘As these parties are made up of free men, if one party gained too much, the effect of liberty would be to lower it while the citizens would come and raise the other party like hands rescuing the body’ (Montesquieu 1989: XIX, 27). The British break from the humanist model does not entail a restriction of the individual’s participation in the public sphere. Once one goes beyond the limited definition of the common good as virtue, it becomes possible to find within the merchant societies the potential for a public spirit associated with rational self-interest The protection of private interest depends on the full exercise of one’s citizenship. Individualism transcends itself by focusing on the defence of free institutions. The partisan spirit contributes to an active citizenry, which preserves pluralism. The involvement in public life is not an obstacle to independence or an impediment to the enjoyment of freedom; as Quentin Skinner has argued, civic watchfulness can be essential to the protection of individual rights. Conclusion The singular position of Montesquieu’s political philosophy seems to raise the question: is not the opposition between republicanism and liberalism a largely artificial one? Today’s modern democracies seem to easily mix features of the two traditions: a representative political system with the development of commercial exchanges, the sovereignty of the people and the interdependence of the citizens, a strong public spirit and the growth of the private realm. Is this

REPUBLICANISM 45

spirit republican or liberal? One could answer this question by painting a pure version of liberalism based on Locke’s theory (protection of individual natural rights). The supporters of the republican tradition would then reply in the style of J.G.A Pocock that Montesquieu’s defence of commerce and the general defence of a commercial society was carried forth in the social philosophy of the Enlightenment with the intellectual tools provided by humanism—which becomes then a ‘legal or merchant humanism’. The enigma of Montesquieu— claimed by the liberal as well as the republican tradition—could then be solved: the liberal defence of the merchant order is in fact a response to the questions raised by the language of humanism; by turning the virtues into manners— commerce being a vector of civilisation and not merely an economic tool—the humanist tradition concurs with the liberal camp by warranting individual freedom without being reduced to a theory of rights. This solution was not seen as satisfactory by the most celebrated of Montesquieu’s heirs, Constant and Tocqueville. Instead of going through the objections made by these liberal thinkers in opposition to the republican discourse, an altogether wiser and more fruitful approach would try to define ‘liberalism’ and ‘republicanism’ in less rigid terms. By not paying too much attention to the theoretical constructs produced by these concepts and by trying to reduce the inner antagonisms that exist within the two traditions, does one not run the risk of obscuring the debate rather than clarifying the key issues? Putting an end to the debates about the possible dissociation between republicanism and value monism, between civic and moral virtue or between community involvement and a unique conception of the good life, political philosophers should probably tackle other issues, notably issues touched upon by Montesquieu concerning not the liberty of commerce and luxury, but its justice. NOTES 1. The expression ‘civic humanism’ was most certainly fashioned by H.Baron in 1928 in German as Bürgerhumanismus, a term which Baron developed in opposition to Burkhart’s notion of ‘Renaissance’ in Baron 1966. 2. While awaiting the whole publication of the complete works of Montesquieu in the new edition of the Voltaire Foundation, all my references to Montesquieu will be to the Masson Edition (1950–1955). All other unspecified references and quotations are to the Spirit of the Laws (the Cambridge edition edited and translated by Cohler et al.). 3. Francis Osborne castigates the strict separation of powers: ‘There never was really any such thing, nor can any business be carried on or government subsist by several powers absolutely distinct and absolutely independent’ (London Journal: 4 July 1730); ‘lt is a mere utopia scheme to assert, that the business of a nation can be carried on, and government maintained, BY POWERS ABSOLUTELY DISTINCT AND ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDANT’ (London Journal: 19 September 1730).

46 MONTESQUIEU: CRITIQUE OF REPUBLICANISM?

4. Bolingbroke state his idea clearly in this excerpt: ‘I assert, that liberty cannot be long secure, in any country, unless a perpetual jealousy watches over it, and a constant determined resolution protects it in the whole body of the nation… The hundred eyes of Argus were not always kept open; but they were never all closed. The whole body of a nation may be as jealous of their liberties, as a private man of his honor. They may be, at all times, animated by a generous resolution of defending their liberties at any risk; as he may, at all times, feel in his heart the courage of venturing his life to maintain his honor’ (Craftsman: 13 June 1730).

REFERENCES Baron, Hans. 1966. The Crisis of Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in the Age of Classicism and Tyranny. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de. 1950–1955. Oeuvres completes. Ed. André Masson. Paris: Les Éditions Nagel. 1989. The Spirit of the Laws. Ed. and Trans. A.M.Cohler, B.C.Miller & H.S.Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pocock, J.G.A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Theory and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

5 The Twilight of the Republic? JEAN-FABIEN SPITZ

French political theorists, philosophers and historians seem recently to have been gravitating toward the idea that French national political culture inherited from the revolution is an exception to mainstream Western political thought because its gives paramount importance to two intertwined tenets. First, there can be no individual freedom short of some sort of deep seated equality that goes well beyond equality of rights to a kind of equality of opportunity and resources (Millon-Delsol 2002; Bouretz 2000). The second tenet is that the proper function of the state is to promote this kind of equality—a fair equality of opportunity, in Rawlsian language—without which individuals would be exposed to various forms of private domination due to inequality in wealth, influence, access to education and proximity to power. The first way to accomplish this is to operate—through progressive taxation— publicly funded systems of education and healthcare which provide a form of national solidarity between the different sections of the population. The second way is to create social rights where the least advantaged members of the community can alleviate at least some of the most severe consequences of their personal dependence and lack of autonomy. Unions rights are an example. Taken together, these two tenets combine into a law-centred vision of politics: in order to be free, citizens must be equally submitted to the law set by the general will of the community, so that, in a process which produces civil liberty for individuals, the state is allotted the central role of preventing private domination to arise, making sure that no important asymmetries can develop, placing one individual under the dependence of another. Providing knowledge and education to all is one of the state’s essential missions, but it is not the only one, since some kind of equality of rights and equality of power must also be placed at the centre of the republican public agency’s agenda. In such a political culture the modern predicament—how to connect the authority of the state and the freedom of the citizen—is not approached from the standpoint of individual rights. The roots of modern liberty are not supposed to lie in the tools individuals may use in order to defend themselves against the state, but in a vision of democracy which permits, as Philip Pettit puts it, the state to track the interests and opinions of the citizens themselves (Pettit 1996: ch.6). Democracy and the general will, not rights, are the keys to liberty so that,

48 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

paradoxically enough, freedom is not freedom from public intervention but freedom by public intervention. Along with this egalitarian drive, French political culture is also permeated with a highly idiosyncratic conception of democracy. According to this conception, democracy should be defined as a kind of regime where the general interest—primarily conceived in terms of equality and in terms of liberty as nondomination—should always prevail over particular interests. This means that, in principle, particular and private interests cannot claim any right to satisfaction, since they possess such a right only insofar as the general will judges it compatible with the common interest. This way of being suspicious toward particularity of interest gives birth, in our political culture, to a magnification of the state and the public sphere as the embodiment and incarnation of the general interest. Whereas Anglo-American culture is prone to think that whatever is private is legitimate and that whatever is public needs apology and justification, French political culture tends to think the other way around: whatever is private is a priori illegitimate and suspected of tending towards domination, while whatever comes from the state is too easily seen as conducing to the general interest and, as such, as invested with a priori legitimacy. A crowning idea in this republican conception is that public institutions can be legitimate only if they endeavour to promote as far as possible this kind of equality. It is only then that such a thing as a res publica can exist and that citizens may come to see the political institutions as truly theirs and deserving respect. When public institutions promote equality, it is evident that they are not instruments for the powerful to maintain their domination, but rather guarantee freedom for all by providing the largest possible amount of primary goods in order that citizens can fulfil their ends. Seen from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, this French republican political tradition may seem very odd indeed, since it can be looked upon as inimical to the central values of any free society: individual independence on one hand, and, on the other hand, that the autonomy of civil and contractual associations from state interference not be required for the protection of persons and property. Many features in the French revolutionary and republican political tradition seem to be unsuitable for the promotion of these values. On the contrary, some of them can very easily be seen as long-standing resurgences of some deep absolutist and authoritarian past which France could not manage to overcome, hindering her complete admission into the Western liberal family. More particularly, French political culture seems to suggest that it makes no sense to speak of freedom from state intervention since freedom is literally assimilated to a form of reciprocity and non-domination in social and political relationships, which is produced and warranted by the state and cannot obtain but by public means: freedom is defined as a kind of subjection to egalitarian and democratically enforced laws. AngloAmericans have never been able to understand how such a paradox—which, in their eyes, culminates in the blatant absurdity according to which one could be ‘forced to be free’ —could ever have been articulated and put forth as a serious

REPUBLICANISM 49

political proposition. Far from these stunning and dangerous paradoxes, AngloAmerican political thought seems to stick to a few simple ideas which must be reasserted, especially where the influence of socialist thought has mechanically pushed democratic states toward excesses in big government, welfarism and state intervention. The order of the day is now individual autonomy, downsizing the state-run economy, and a new power for individuals to meet as few obstacles as possible to their desire for free enterprise. Civil society, conceived as a free web of private associations, must be given pride of place in this renovated liberal approach, which questions the very idea that law could have any positive function in the production and maintenance of individual freedom. Freedom is freedom from the law, not freedom by the law. Of course law and political institutions are central in any liberal society, but they are supposed to protect and enforce what belongs to men by nature, i.e. the right to appropriate and to be left alone when they do not wrong their fellow citizens; they are not supposed to be the fons et origo of what it means to be free. Parallel to this revaluation of the role of civil society and individual initiative, critics of the French republican model tend to say that democracy should be conceived as a market where private and particular interests try to get the largest advantages for themselves, while representatives tend to be viewed as mere spokesmen for local or partial interests, whose function is to defend them in the public forum. Democratic politics are not so much the search for any kind of common good conceived in terms of equality and legitimacy, than a kind of permanent negotiation: the political stand of the society as a whole looks like a seismograph registering from day to day the respective weight of the different factions as well as their ability to promote their own interest and to gain the best compromise for their members. Lobbies and pressure groups are the main actors of modern democratic life, which is now rapidly freeing itself from the twin myths of general interest and general will that gave the an overarching, but ill deserved prestige. Of course, such a disenchanted form of political life needs some specific safeguards, and this is where the culture of rights comes into the picture. Public life is so marred by private interests and factions that the majoritarian will tends to reflect at best a coalition of particular interests and prejudices. This is precisely why individuals need some rights in order to trump the majority when it wants to have things its way at the expense of minorities. The aim of this essay is to assess the validity of this criticism of the so-called French conception of republican politics. The main thesis defended here is that this criticism cannot pretend to illustrate an alternate Anglo-Saxon conception of politics, for though it seems to describe the way England and the United States have been governed since the beginning of the 1980s, it is entirely foreign to the main current of Anglo-American philosophical liberalism. As Will Kymlicka has emphasised, political conceptions now fashionable among the governing circles in America are a mix of social Darwinism and conservatism which cannot validly amount to a liberal view of society and politics, since it staunchly rejects

50 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

any idea of compensating for the effects of social origin and pure chance on individuals lives (Kymlicka 1998). Furthermore, the very conception of democracy which is asserted in this criticism is not a democratic conception, far less give birth to a regime of political freedom. Where arbitrary differences are not regulated and compensated by public institutions, and where civil society becomes a closed field where unjustified differences and private forms of domination can freely flourish under the protective umbrella of a minimal state, democracy fades along with legitimacy. Democracy is impossible where the least advantaged section of society is unable to see that public institutions are merely tools in the hands of those who dominate them. The basic structure of society can be legitimate only if it does something more than simply regulate the conflicts between various particular interests, blowing hot air from time to time in favour of the most actively protesting interests in order to escape the breaking point. When politics is nothing more than the art of negotiating compromises, it is no longer the rule of right but the rule of might. To suppose that public institutions have no compensating or equalising function is to suppose that all the equality needed for anyone to be able to live an autonomous life is simply given and that the civil sphere is just a place for free interactions between individuals with equal power or, at least, with all the powers each of them deserves to have in relation to his own efforts and his personal qualities. But just the reverse seem to be true: in the democratic societies of the beginning of the twenty-first century, freedom is challenged by unjustified differences which cannot be proven to function for mutual advantage, so that liberty’s main enemy is not only the state but also the extraordinary concentrations of private wealth and power which constrain those who are not members of the wealthy inner circle to forms of behaviour most profitable for the upper class. The dismantling of the welfare state and the transformation of civil society, where individuals enjoy their personal rights against the state, empty democracy of its egalitarian content. Private domination, through wealth and education, becomes a normal phenomenon. Criticising the French republican model of politics for its supposed illiberalism is one of the ways through which this enterprise is progressing in contemporary political culture; suggesting that the tradition of Anglo-American philosophical liberalism from Locke to Rawls should be understood as in harmony with this enterprise is another. This suggestion is highly questionable, since personal autonomy depends on a just share of social resources, while liberty requires that others have a duty to respect it. But, in turn, such a duty can be grounded only on an equal of access to resources which makes autonomy effective or—which amounts to the same thing —on vigorous and continuous public intervention which ensures that no citizen is subjected to private domination or is prevented from enjoying freedom as nondomination. Thus, reflection on the role of public institutions in protecting individuals against private domination and the effects of wide and unjustified inequalities of

REPUBLICANISM 51

resources is part of the modern conception of freedom. Likewise, the reflection on the means public institutions must resort to in order to be able to play this protective role is also a part of the modern conception of freedom. Contrary to what seems to be a widely diffused and accepted idea, the reflection about the nature of democracy—how to keep the law and public institutions in line with citizens’ interest in non-domination—is essentially connected to the nature of freedom. Democracy involves the means and procedures by which public institutions contribute to individuals’ defence against domination and discrimination flowing from inequality. Since Benjamin Constant, many self-proclaimed liberal writers have suggested that the preoccupation about equality is at bottom a preoccupation about power. These same writers also suggest that these two values are mutually exclusive, and that the egalitarian aspiration for equal conditions of the exercise of liberty is an outworn archaism reflecting the lingering question: who rules whom. They suggest that this question should be abandoned for the sake of another one: how free are we, that is, how limited is the power which governs us and what are the rights we are able to exercise in order to prevent that power from exceeding its own limits? Against this, the French republican tradition suggests that equality and liberty are deeply connected one with the other so that, in Rousseau’s words, ‘liberty without equality is a true contradiction’ and that the main spokesmen for the liberal tradition today in the Anglo-Saxon philosophy seem to agree. Taking this into account we might make the three suggestions. First, the French idea of freedom is a specifically modern way of thinking about the conditions of individual freedom. Its law-centred, egalitarian bias is not an awkward feature in a liberal setting and it is not an outworn remnant of some soon-to-be-forgotten, distant, absolutist past. It has to do with a republican conception which stresses liberty as non-domination, and which says that liberty does have two different enemies: one is the non-democratic state which concentrates power in the hands of a few and which is itself a dominating institution; the other is private power and privilege and the numerous abuses they can perpetrate against equality. Second, we should be suspicious of the dichotomy between an Anglo-Saxon model of politics centred around the autonomy of civil society from public intervention and the autonomy of rights-bearing individuals from state interference, and a supposedly French model involving a centralised public endeavour which attempts to master private domination and inequality. Mastering private domination through law and trying to regulate and compensate unjustified inequalities through public institutions in order to create a fair equality of opportunity is not specifically French, since it is the very heart of liberal political philosophy. Third, this republican conception of politics needs to be defended against those who try to persuade us that there is no place in the liberal intellectual universe for a publicly managed endeavour to control inequalities and private domination. The role of modern democracies goes beyond making civil society as

52 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

independent as possible of state interference and endowing individuals with rights protecting personal freedom. In order to substantiate this defence, I would like to offer three different arguments, two philosophical and one historical. The first philosophical argument bears on the definition of democracy inherent in the critique of the French model. I attempt to show that, would such a definition prevail, it would mean a very serious impoverishment of the liberal political tradition. The second argument examines the meaning of freedom and questions the way the critique sketched above approaches the relationship between freedom and equality. Instead, I argue that liberty and equality are interdependent concepts. Since our aim is to throw into doubt the very dichotomy between a supposed Anglo-Saxon model and a French one, it seems appropriate to suggest that contemporary English-speaking liberal philosophy is a major source for both of these arguments. The implication is that that they are not only French, but truly liberal arguments whose liberal credentials have been dissimulated by what passes or tends to pass today for a liberal philosophy of politics and society. The third argument tries to substantiate the following idea. It may be true—as many critics have suggested since Tocqueville—that the conditions in which the French republican model developed do amount to a very specific historical context which has been absent from English and American history, including a deeply resilient aristocratic society that caused the French people to succumb to an egalitarian pathology. But it is not true that, today, this fact should prevent anyone from taking this conception seriously (Palmer 1958:266–282). These conditions enabled French political culture to unearth what has become a very important part of the reflection on modern freedom: the irreplaceable function of law and public institutions in the production of individual freedom. Let us review the argument about the definition of democracy. According to the critics of the French model, there should be two different meanings of democracy. One is the constitutional meaning which says that democracy is a regime where individuals enjoy some rights they may use in order to trump the collective will when it appears that this will is tainted by prejudices which endanger their capacity to be morally independent and equally respected persons. The second meaning is a majoritarian one, which is supposed to say that democratic individuals can enjoy no rights against the law since all the rights they have are conferred by the law, so that the democratic character of the state— the fact that the people do govern themselves—appears to be the only resource individuals might resort to in order to protect themselves from oppression. According to the critics, this second conception is based upon a deeply misleading confusion between liberty and power, so that there is no reason to worry if we see that contemporary democracies are eliminating it, moving, without much more ado, towards the first one. Such an evolution is all the more welcome since, in modern societies, it becomes less of a possibility that laws track the interests and opinions of the whole citizenry; laws are nothing more than compromises, they no longer express any kind of common interest but

REPUBLICANISM 53

merely reflect the way different lobbies and private factions do negotiate their respective shares in the distribution of the advantages produced by social cooperation. Since laws only express bunches of particular interests, individuals urgently need rights against them. Now the very distinction between a constitutional and a majoritarian account of democracy only make sense if we make a further distinction between two different meanings of constitutional democracy. According to the first meaning— forcefully presented by Bruce Ackerman (1991)— constitutional democracy means that there is a possibility of appealing to the will of the people, as represented by the legislative, and to the people in its constituent capacity, in order to receive protection from the will of private citizens exclusively preoccupied by their own interests. The tendency to view politics as an occasion for compromise between particular interests must be mitigated by the will of mobilised citizens engaging in questions of principle, whose solution is crucial for the community’s future. This kind of constitutional democracy aims at the preservation of the sovereign people’s will during periods of normal politics when the citizens do not raise fundamental questions and pay only a soft and diverted attention to the political process; during these periods, the sovereign people needs constitutional devices—such as the Supreme Court in the United States—which amount to a power to oppose the legislative will of their representatives. In such an approach, the function of judicial review is only to verify the compatibility between day to day legislation enacted by representative assemblies and the constitutional principles which the people have accepted the last time they have been involved in constitutional politics. A second task of the Supreme Court is to synthesise the different principles put forth by the people in their constituent capacity and to decide, after the most recent one, how to reorganise the constitutional heritage so as make it into a coherent whole. This view of constitutional democracy does not resort to independent rights based either in nature or reason. What can trump the present will of the legislative is not some philosophical proposition about the individual rights, but a political proposition about what orders the people, in their constituent capacity, want to give to their representatives in Congress. Seen in this light, the practice of checking the legislature by resorting to rights is only a reminder of a far-reaching truth: those who govern, be they in charge of a legislative or an executive function, are not the people themselves, so they cannot claim sovereignty. This means that the political process is not necessarily an art of negotiating compromises between particular interests; while this is what politics is about most of the time, it remains possible (and necessary for the future of democracy) that the people themselves turn their attention to questions of principles and that, at least in exceptional moments, they decide how their rights should be interpreted and what rule of common existence they want to settle their collective existence upon. So, it is not true that politics is necessarily marred by particular interests, and that these particular interests are the only topic discussed and

54 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

negotiated in the political process, requiring individual rights in order to protect against the possible results of such a highly non-principled process. In this version of constitutional democracy, there is no contradiction between rights and the general will, since the rights citizens have are only those which flow from the principles they have asserted in their constituent capacity. There is no tendency towards the idea that rights should be taken as intangible trumps in order to restrain the empire of collective decisions on individuals since it is openly admitted that individuals do not have any rights except those that they themselves— not their representatives—have enacted through law. The other version of constitutional democracy is the one put forth by Ronald Dworkin. It amounts to a definition of democracy which refers to the very content of the decisions taken and not to the forms or procedures according to which they have been taken: what deserves to be called democratic is a kind of decision which shows equal respect for all citizens, which takes into account the right of all citizens to be treated as an equal and to have the conditions of their moral independence respected (Dworkin 1996: ch. l). Constitutional democracy is thus a kind of political regime in which non-discrimination, or the refusal to consider any individual to be less valuable than others, is the central point; according to Dworkin, it belongs to judges, armed with jurisprudence and natural philosophical reason, to decide what acts of ordinary legislation are compatible with such a right to equality of respect, and to enforce, as far as possible, the best possible interpretation of this fundamental egalitarian principle. We are not concerned here with any extended discussion of the comparative strengths or weaknesses of these two competing conceptions of constitutionalism. Let us only notice that the critic of the French republican model can be associated with the idea that contemporary democracy is necessarily progressing toward the Dworkinian version. Such an option is dictated by the fact that, in the modern world, it has become impossible to have citizens, and that politics is now unable to address questions of principle. Since questions of what rights we should have do not fit in a political process exclusively made up of compromises between particular interests, and since principled and constitutional politics irremediably belongs to the past, it is time to have judges controlling the whole thing and saying what rights are required by the democratic claim of equality of respect. This rebuttal of the very idea of the general will cannot be accepted at face value for several reasons. In the first place, it is not altogether coherent, as Jeremy Waldron has shown, to claim on the one hand that citizens in modern democracies should have rights, and to claim on the other hand that they are unable to make collective decisions from the point of view of their common interest (Waldron 1999a, b). Rights can only be legitimately claimed if they are indispensable for the exercise of some moral and political responsibility, so that citizens must have these rights in order to be autonomous and to lead a rational, responsible life according to the choices they have made for themselves. But if modern citizens are unable to respond to

REPUBLICANISM 55

anything but their own private interests, if they are supposed to be unable to address themselves to questions of principle and to shape their lives accordingly, what is the point of having rights? Rights are necessary not in order to enable people to get what they want, but in order to enable them act as citizens in a community which makes sensible and rational choices. In the second place, it could be suggested that justice and rights are as much the object of reasonable disagreement as our conceptions of the good and of human excellence. If such is the case, why should judges who are supposed to be the very embodiment of philosophical reason be allowed to decide questions of principle by themselves? To proceed this way just amounts to giving a blatant and unjustified advantage to one competing conception of what rights should be, pretending to settle a major disagreement without resorting to a democratic procedure whose formal character could legitimise the obligation to comply with its outcomes. One of the reasons Dworkin puts forth for not making the people themselves act as the umpire in questions of principles—and for trusting the judiciary instead—is that judges are far less susceptible to err in questions of that kind because they are far less exposed to the pressure of factions, particular interests and demagogy which pervade the sphere of democratic politics. But this answer can be upheld only if one wants to hide the less than respectable part played by the judiciary during several periods of American history. The decisions in the Dred Scott or Lochner cases might be enough to testify that the judiciary is not free from error and prejudice. And again, if the citizens themselves are so deeply distrusted in their capacity to address and answer questions of principle, what’s the point of conferring them any rights? (see for instance Tushnet 1999; Sunstein 1996, 1999). A third reason for doubting the validity of the Dworkinian conception of constitutional democracy is that it is risky. As many critics have shown, it would be adventurous to believe that the judiciary will suffice to defend individual rights. On the contrary, it seems that judicial activism has the effect of turning the community’s attention away from questions of principle, causing a loss in the degree of awareness, in the mind of the common citizen, of why anyone should have to defend his rights. Judicial activism in the Dworkinian account can thus create a false security grounded on the idea that some professional right-watchers are specifically appointed in order to keep the constitution alive and to inspect legislation so as to prevent any encroachment on rights. At bottom, our first argument amounts to a very simple suggestion: should it become true that there are no citizens in the modern world, that people are unable to address questions of principle, that politics is only an art of negotiating compromises, that particular interests are the only possible protagonists’ in the political field, democracy’s future would be very grim indeed. The second philosophical argument bears on the nature of the connection between equality and liberty. It purports to show that freedom, as far as it is taken as a normative value and is thought of as the major value to be realised in a liberal society, cannot be separated from an equality of resources or from the

56 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

intervention of law and public institutions. As Ronald Dworkin has shown in a series of papers dating back the 1980s (Dworkin 2000), the kind of freedom which stands in dramatic opposition with equality in libertarian discourse is only a descriptive concept and it can refer only to what individuals are physically or materially able to do. When freedom is taken in this sense, it is obvious that any kind of public action in favour of equality curtails liberty. But the question is whether such a descriptive liberty really does possess a normative value and whether a liberal society must protect liberty in this sense. Dworkin’s answer is negative, since it can be shown that freedom as a normative concept is necessarily connected with the idea of what an individual is able to do with a just share of social resources. Briefly stated, this means that normative liberty cannot be defined without alluding to that just share, and that what deserves to be protected and promoted in a liberal society is precisely this freedom in a normative sense. What individuals are able to do with an unjust share— that is, with a share of social resources which is greater than the one they would have in an egalitarian distribution—is no liberty at all, or rather, it is liberty in a descriptive and not normative sense. If this is true, there is no liberty short of equality of resources in the Dworkinian sense. Furthermore, no set of principles of social cooperation can claim to be liberal if it does not purport to make significant progress toward such a kind of equality of resources. In his contribution to the discussions which have followed the publication of Michael Sandel’s Democracy’s Discontent, Will Kymlicka suggested in a similar way that any proposition which presents equality as a value which is not necessarily integrated in the definition of a free society would be unable to qualify as a liberal one. This would inevitably lead to what appears to be a paradox in the liberal intellectual universe: that the lives of the citizens do not have equal value or importance, and that a liberal society should not serve its citizens equally, since it can easily tolerate that some of them have—for reasons not connected with their choices or the exercise of their responsibility—many more resources than others in order to pursue their aims. How can we claim that liberty is an important value without claiming at the same time that it is equally important for all to be free? And how can we claim that it is important for all to be free if we do not claim at the same time that inequalities of resources flowing from arbitrary causes are unjust and must be compensated? According to Kymlicka, any political proposition which would thus refuse to say that the lives of all citizens have equal importance would clearly be non-liberal and it would gravitate toward some form of conservative social Darwinism. Both Kymlicka and Dworkin thus argue that the intervention of public institutions would be an obstacle to individual freedom only in a context in which equality of resources could be actually realised, so that, by the very hypothesis, no public action in favour of such an equality can be considered as preventing individuals to be free. These arguments have been put forth in several forms by contemporary liberal egalitarians, and the question is which of the two options—the French law- and state-centred republican model, or the so called Anglo-Saxon model supposedly

REPUBLICANISM 57

based on individual liberty and an independent civil society—is more faithful to the liberal project of liberating the individual, and to the fundamental principles of liberal political philosophy according to which individuals should equally and indiscriminately be free to choose and to revise the values and aims shaping their lives, whatever their religion, gender, colour of skin, or personal opinions? If the very heart of this liberal political approach is the idea that society and the state must not make any value judgements on what individuals are nor on what they think, and if the concrete form of this idea is that public institutions must be absolutely impartial and non-discriminating between citizens, what form of social and political regulation is best able to answer to these claims and to fulfil the promises inherent to it? I believe that the kind of society which agrees with this liberal approach is obviously a society in which the state and public institutions are willing to promote some redistribution of resources and to make some progress toward a more robust equality so that all citizens might be offered some fair equality of opportunity. If an action meant to guarantee that equality of rights does not correspond to an unjustified and arbitrary inequality of fact, no society can claim to be faithful to the primary liberal inspiration where no individual has more value than any other. No individual can ever justly claim that he deserves to have more resources than others in order to conduct his life and pursue his projects and personal aims. As for the historical argument, it can be formulated in a very simple way. If we go back to pre-revolutionary France, we can see that this period is characterised as a conflict between two different conceptions of power and liberty (Van Kley 1994a). On the one hand, we find what has been called the thèse parlementaire, tainted with a spirit of Anglophilia. This conception approaches the problem of freedom from the point the view of an opposition between civil society and absolute monarchy. Its main point is that liberty can be grounded on a kind of ancient constitution which gives an important place to intermediary powers independent of the monarchy. Those intermediary powers—the parlements, but also the church, provincial and municipal privileged bodies, guilds, aristocratic families— are necessary in order to check the power of the king and to constrain him to compromises, so that such a conception stresses the importance of what Tocqueville would call ‘aristocratic liberty’, a kind of liberty attached to the privileges of constituted bodies able to resist the various encroachments and despotic enterprises of the crown and its ministers. The reference here is to the English mixed constitution supposed to be a necessary cooperation between crown, lords and commons considered as independent estates not subordinated to each other, thus providing a system of checks and balances avant la lettre. This political point of view reaches the peak of its influence in the 1770s when, in the name of the king, Chancelier Maupéou tried to suppress the parlements and to end the right they pretended to have to take part in the legislation of the kingdom (Echevarria 1985). This amounted to a very impressive endeavour to modernise French political society by putting an end to privileges and to the braking

58 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

function of some intermediate bodies which, in the eyes of the king’s minister, used their self proclaimed political role to promote and protect their own particular interests. It is worth noticing here that what the parlements did speak for is not liberty in the abstract sense but liberties in the plural, which mean privileged status and the right (obtained by history or custom) to be treated in a specific way and to escape the common lot of other citizens (in fiscal matters mainly). What they were fighting for was a hierarchical society composed of various bodies with unequal rights. Being independent from power meant, under this conception, being able to keep a privileged and self-proclaimed juridical status, to escape an egalitarian law and, of course, to use those very privileges in order to dominate those who did not possess any. This is the point where those who claim an independence from power can be seen as claiming the right to exercise power. At the other end of the spectrum, there is what has been called thèse royale. According to this second conception, the centralised monarchical power should be used in order to dissolve privileges, to submit each and every citizen to the same legal rule, and thus to create a renovated society made of citizens with equal rights and equal duties. In such a conception, the question of freedom is not seen from the perspective of an opposition between monarchy and civil society and liberty is not defined as a kind of independence from political power (Linguet 1770, 1774). On the contrary, what is seen as the main obstacle to common freedom is the difference in juridical status between privileged and nonprivileged, between the constituted bodies enjoying particular and specific rights and those who lack any privilege. This difference allows the privileged orders both to escape common duties and to dominate, exercising a kind of non-publicly authorised power. In this context, the centralised monarchical power is not the enemy of freedom but its main ally, since it is the only power able to repel privilege and to suppress it in order to create a society of equal citizens. The confrontation between these two competing conceptions of liberty has some very paradoxical effects. Followers of the thèse parlementaire constantly refer to ‘the people’, and to the rights of the people not to be oppressed by the ministerial despotism of the monarchy. But what they have in mind is not the people made up of free and autonomous individuals, but the people conceived as a society of orders, composed of different groups invested with different rights and trying to defend these rights as the instruments of their liberty, that is, of their independence from the monarchy. In this intellectual context, the people in its modern sense, the constituent people of Locke and Rousseau, simply does not exist. The thèse parlementaire is not associated with a political conception where the state of nature and the social contract would play a significant role in explaining the origin of rights and power, but with an historical conception grounded on the notions of custom and antiquity. So, the party opposed to monarchy and claiming some independence from power is unable to draw upon the modern concept of a people.

REPUBLICANISM 59

On the other hand, the partisans of the thèse royale also refer to the people but, for them, the word, is invested with a very different meaning. The people is what they want to create, what in their view will be the result of the king’s victory over the privileged orders. There, when the monarchy will have won its battle against those who claim to enjoy a special status and to escape the common legal lot, there will be a people worthy of the name, which will take the place of this oppressive body of sundry pieces with no common status. The paradox is that where there is opposition to monarchy, there is no people, and that where the concept of a people in the modern sense is at hand (in the thèse royale) there is no possibility for this people conceived as claiming any rights against an encroaching central political power, since it is clear that such a people can exist only as the result of some deliberate action of this very centralised power. So the situation prevailing in the pre-revolutionary period in France is very different from the social, political and intellectual context in which the English speaking world launched its own reflection on the conditions of modern freedom. In England, the society of orders has progressively dissolved itself and, in America, it simply has never existed so that, for better of for worse, the question of freedom from start has been a question linked to the nature of the relationship between free individual and the power they erect over themselves in order to settle their mutual conflicts. This is why, in this context, the question is always how to have a power without having a master, how to be both able to protect and unable to oppress. It is possible for individual rights and the independence of civil society to offer a solution to this problem since individuals are seen as invested with intangible rights which make them equal outside any political society, and since political society’s function is only to defend and protect these rights. Civil society made up of individual right-bearers freely associating one with another can be seen as the main barrier against an ever encroaching political power since such a civil society can be seen as given by nature, as existing outside any political form and independently from it. But no so in the French context. A civil society of equal individual rightbearers cannot be seen as something given, since what is given by history and custom is a society of orders with the resulting privileges and private domination which go with it, meaning that civil society is not the solution but the very problem to be solved: how to dissolve orders, replacing them with a society of equal individual right-bearers? How to put and end to this kind of non-collective life where the privileged can exercise domination over the non-privileged? How to suppress private power and replace it by the rule of law? The answer is obvious: such a revolution is possible only through centralised legislation and a very potent state. But, in turn, this answer is paradoxical, since it amounts to saying that far from being true that free individuals create the state they need in order to protect the rights nature has given them, law and a central public agency create free individuals as right-bearers, and that the rights they have are not so much used in

60 THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC?

order to defend themselves against the encroachments of the law, but conferred on them by law in order to defend themselves against the would be oppressors and dominators amongst their fellow citizens. Maybe there is some occasion for regret in the fact that the French reflection on freedom has taken this very bizarre turn for historical reasons, but maybe not, for one obvious thing should emerge from this historical argument: no one can seriously claim that inequality, private power and private domination are not enemies to individual freedom; and no one can seriously claim that equality is simply given and that the only real problem is how to defend equal individuals against the political device they place over themselves. There is obviously another problem: how to prevent freely acting individuals from becoming unequal to the point where private power—which means a power not consented to— would be. regain its status. How to prevent pure chance creating difference between individuals which would allow some of them to dominate the others? For such a problem, law and centralised public agency are the inescapable answer, and that is precisely what follows from the highly particular origins of the French republican conception. REFERENCES Ackerman, B. 1991. We the People, Vol. 1 Foundations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Allen, A.L. & M.C.Regan, eds. 1998. Debating Democracy’s Discontent, Essays on American Politics, Law and Public Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bouretz, P. 2000. La république et l’universel. Paris: Gallimard. Dworkin, R. 1996. Freedom’s Law, The Moral Reading of the American Constitution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2000. Sovereign Virtue, The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Echevarria, D. 1985. The Maupeou Revolution, A Study in the History of Libertarianism, France 1770–1774. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Kymlicka, W. 1998. ‘Liberal egalitarianism and civic republicanism, friends or enemies?’. Allen & Regan 1998:131–48. Linguet, S. 1770. Lettres sur la théorie des lois civiles. Amsterdam. 1774. Du plus heureux gouvernement ou parallèle des constitutions politiques de l’Asie avec celles de l’Europe. London. Million-Delsol, C. 2002. La République, une question française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Palmer, R.R. 1958. The Age of Democratic Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pettit, P. 1996. Republicanism, A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sunstein, Cass.R. Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

REPUBLICANISM 61

1999. One Case at a Time, Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tushnet, M. 1999. Taking the Constitution away from the Courts. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Van Kley, D. 1994a. ‘From the lessons of French history to truths for all times and all people: the historical origins of an anti historical declaration’. Van Kley 1994b: 72–113. ed.1994b. The French Idea of Freedom. The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Waldron, J. 1999a. The Dignity of Legislation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999b. Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

6 Discourse Theory and Republican Freedom PHILIP PETTIT

Common to all conceptions of freedom in human agents is the idea that freedom is reduced or lost when certain hindrances are put in the way of choice. What distinguishes such conceptions from one another is the fact that different hindrances are taken as relevant by different approaches. Some approaches think that any costs imposed on choice, no matter by what instrumentality, are freedomrelevant hindrances; others that only costs that actually block choice are relevant; others that only costs imposed intentionally by other people are relevant; and so on. I am concerned in this essay with the differences that divide the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference—this is a conception endorsed in at least some streams of liberalism—and the republican conception of freedom as non-domination (Braithwaite & Pettit 1990; Pettit 1997).1 I want to argue that whereas the standard image of the human subject as a relatively rational centre of belief, desire and action gives us no firm ground for ruling either way on how those differences should be resolved, a second, more specific image of the human being— one that adds some further specifications—rules in favour of the republican position. This image casts the human agent not only as a centre of belief and desire and action—as a decision-theoretic subject— but also as a creature which has the capacity to reason about beliefs and desires and actions in discourse with others; broadly speaking, it casts the human being in the manner of discourse theory (Habermas 1984–1989, 1995; Pettit 2001a). The essay is in three sections. In the first I give an overview of the two crucial issues that divide the two conceptions of freedom. In the second I look at the two images of agency mentioned which I describe, perhaps somewhat pompously, as the decision-theoretic and the discourse-theoretic. And then in the third I argue that while the differences on these issues are left unresolved under the generic, decision-theoretic image, they are resolved in favour of the republican under the discourse-theoretic. I see this as a powerful argument for the republican conception, since that image clearly offers a faithful picture of human nature.

REPUBLICANISM 63

The Dividing Issues Overview Suppose that someone has a choice between different options, A, B and C, in situation S. What are the different ways, intuitively, in which that choice might be hindered, with the costs of one or more options being raised? One source of difference among potential hindrances is that they may vary in intensity between those, at one end of a spectrum, that make the choice of certain options impossible and those at the other end that make it only a little more difficult. Another is that the options the hindrances affect may be more or less important to the agent, by whatever metric of importance is thought relevant; they may impinge on things the agent cares little about, for example, or on things that matter greatly by the agent’s lights. And a third is that if we distinguish out as finely as possible the different costs that a given hindrance imposes on an option, then we will find that each sort of cost has coordinates on at least three dimensions: it will be real or experiential in its essential character, depending on whether it is physically obstructive or psychologically inhibiting; it will be current or prospective, depending on whether it attends the action or comes later; and it will be harmful in absolute or just in relative terms, depending on whether it makes some option more costly than it was or just makes rival options more attractive. Thus, hindrances can vary, not just in intensity and importance, but also in the sorts of costs that they impose. These modes of difference are all in a certain sense intrinsic to the hindrances that are put in the way of choice. A second mode of difference stems, not from what the hindrances are like in themselves, but from the instrumentality whereby they are imposed, and this mode of difference will be of more concern to us here. While there are lots of interesting issues about what intrinsic modes of variation in hindrances are relevant to whether freedom is reduced, the dividing issues under discussion in this essay both relate to the instrumentality by which hindrances materialise. There are a number of ways in which the books might be kept on this mode of variation but I think it is probably most useful to distinguish the available instrumentalities into three broad categories: situational, psychological and interpersonal. Whenever hindrances are put in the way of choice, they come of costs that are imposed by the agent’s situation or psychology or interpersonal status. Situational costs derive from either of two broad sources, respectively material and social. Social costs are those that a person faces as a result of the operation of economic, cultural and related processes, when those processes are not intentionally controlled by anyone who is intent on imposing such costs on the person: so far as the costs are in that sense situational. Thus the market in which producers are situated, if it ensures competitive pricing, will impose costs on anyone who tries to sell above that price. And for each of those individuals the

64 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

FIGURE 1 VARIATIONS IN THE HINDRANCE OF CHOICE

precise way in which they are situated in that market—their market power—will carry its own associated constraints and costs. The physical, situational costs that such individuals face will often be dictated by external factors like the fertility of the land, the hospitality of the weather, the cleanliness of the water, as well as their own particular level of access to those resources. But they may also be associated with the state of their own bodies: a person’s health or strength or sheer intelligence will have just as great an impact on how costly various options will be as factors of a more external sort. The second instrumentality whereby various options may incur costs for an agent is their own psychology. Let a person have a morbid fear of doing something and it will be that much more costly for them to attempt it. Or let them find it difficult to maintain resoluteness across time—let them be weak of will— and the costs will accordingly increase. Or let them be compulsively or obsessively attracted to a certain sort of option in any choice set they confront— say, the option of taking the drug or indulging the gambling habit—and again the costs associated with other options will be that much greater. Just as the person’s choices may be hindered by factors in their material and social situation, so clearly they may be hindered by factors of this kind in their own personality. The third and last instrumentality whereby costs may be imposed on options, and choices thereby hindered, is interpersonal in character. This is perhaps the most salient of all, for the very paradigms of choice-hindering costs are associated with interpersonal relations. They include the act whereby another individual or group removes an option from someone’s choice set, whether by

REPUBLICANISM 65

force or manipulation; the act of coercion whereby they threaten them with a certain penalty in the event of their making a particular choice; the deceptive or manipulative act whereby they get them to have a false belief, say about the options available or about the associated costs; the persuasive act whereby they get them to change their minds about what to do; the offer of a reward that increases the attraction of one option and raises the relative costs of others; and the inhibition, perhaps quite involuntary, that one person or group induces in another just through being saliently in a position to do them benefit or harm at will. One person may impose costs on another just through falling in their path, or infecting the air they breathe, but I do not count these as examples of interpersonal costs, since they could just as well have been imposed by nonpersons. Acts of intentionally blocking someone from doing something, issuing a threat that is designed to stop them from doing it, misleading them about the costs of doing it, or making an offer designed to get them to do something else instead will, by contrast, count as interpersonal modes of hindering choice. But interpersonal modes of hindrance, it should be noticed, may also be nonintentional in character. If it is obvious to you that I can hurt you in some way or help you out in some way—those being themselves interpersonal overtures— then regardless of my intention or even awareness, that fact may raise the prospective cost of your doing something that you expect me to dislike and, noticing this, you may shrink from the action in question out of a desire to keep me sweet. To sum up, then, a choice will be hindered so far as one or more of the options involved incurs costs. The sorts of costs can be more or less intense, can affect more or less important options, and can vary in being real or experiential, current or prospective, absolute or relative. And the costs may be imposed by any of three major instrumentalities, respectively situational, psychological and interpersonal. The picture is summed up in Figure 1. The Crucial Issues Freedom as non-interference, in the more or less standard mode in which I shall take it here, is distinguished—like every other conception —by the hindrances that it takes to be relevant to the question of whether freedom is reduced. It assumes that freedom-relevant hindrances may vary in intensity, recognising that coercive threats, and not just those interventions that make the choice of some option impossible, may reduce freedom (pace Taylor 1982; Steiner 1993, 1994; Carter 1996). It is associated with the view that any hindrance to any option, no matter how unimportant, can reduce a person’s freedom, though it is not inherently hostile to allowing the importance of the options to be taken into account in any reckoning or measurement of freedom (for rival views on this, see Taylor 1995; Sugden 1998). And it takes a fairly generous line on how far the costs imposed by freedom-relevant hindrances may vary in the dimensions we

66 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

mentioned. It allows that they may be real or experiential in essential character, and that they may be current or prospective, though it does not countenance the possibility that the merely relative costs associated with offers should count as reducing freedom (Nozick 1969). In these respects, freedom as non-domination is indistinguishable from freedom as non-interference and I shall not be discussing them further in this essay, though there are interesting questions as to how far they are justifiable within the different images discussed in the next section. The differences between the two conceptions come in their different attitudes to the instrumentalities whereby freedom-relevant hindrances may be imposed. Freedom as non-interference takes the line that one’s situation, material or social, does not reduce one’s freedom as such—does not compromise it, as I shall say—though it may certainly reduce the extent to which one can enjoy the amount of freedom or non-interference one has. It may condition one’s freedom, as distinct from compromising it (Pettit 1997, chs 1–2)—if you like, it may reduce the worth of one’s freedom (Rawls 1971)—but it does not affect one’s freedom as such. The hindrances put in one’s way by niggardly nature or hostile fortune do not count as interference proper, though they may put limits on how far or with what ease one may enjoy or exercise the non-interference one has. As one’s material and social situation may not reduce one’s freedom as such— one’s freedom in the sense of non-interference—so those features of one’s psychology that one might be disposed to bemoan as constraints on choice do not reduce it either. One’s morbid fears or one’s pathological beliefs may reduce one’s autonomy—this is the psychological version of positive liberty (Berlin 1969)—and this may be a very regrettable deprivation. But nevertheless it is not a reduction in freedom as non-interference. That this is so should not be taken necessarily as a powerful argument against freedom as non-interference. The fact that the conception overlooks such psychological constraints may be put down to a recognition that there is little that the state can directly do to improve people’s performance on the psychological front, together with a desire to have a notion of freedom that is politically relevant. Freedom as non-domination is indistinguishable in its attitude to situational and psychological constraints from freedom as non-interference. In saying that, however, I hasten to add that both conceptions of freedom are capable of supporting calls for interventions by the state that are designed to reduce the conditioning of freedom in the natural and social order, or at least the conditioning that can be feasibly and efficiently reduced by coercive, collectively authorised action. Freedom as non-interference and freedom as non-domination will each be made effective, rather than remaining just formal benefits, so far as people are sufficiently well supported in natural and social ways to be able to enjoy their uninterfered-with or undominated status across a wide range of choices, and without great difficulty. There is no reason on these fronts, then, why either conception should be less that politically radical in what it recommends (Van Parijs 1995; Pettit 1997). 1

REPUBLICANISM 67

And so, finally, to the category in which freedom as non-interference finds those hindrances to choice that compromise freedom in the fullest sense. It is in the interpersonal relations to others, so the conception suggests, that people’s freedom is properly at risk. One will suffer a loss of freedom just so far as others intentionally seek to limit one’s choice or are negligent about not trying to avoid limiting one’s choice (Miller 1984, 1993)—and this, however slight the intensity of the limitation, however unimportant the option reduced, and regardless of whether the cost involved is real or experiential, current or prospective: the only qualification is that the cost imposed must not be the merely relative sort of cost associated with offers. The conception is characterised by the all-claim that all acts of interference—all intentional actions that are designed to limit choice by the imposition of such costs—take away freedom in some measure, and by the corresponding, only-claim that nothing else does so. The opposition of freedom as non-domination to freedom as non-interference shows up in its rejection of these two claims. Against the all-claim, it argues that there are certain acts of interference, in the relevant sense, that do not count as ways in which freedom is compromised, though they may count as ways in which it is conditioned. And against the only-claim, it maintains that there are certain non-intentional aspects of how someone relates interpersonally to others that do reduce the person’s freedom. Freedom as non-domination denies that to be free is to lack the interference of others as such, holding rather that to be free is to be more or less proof against a certain sort of interference—the kind that is usually described as arbitrary. One is free to the extent that one is not exposed to the arbitrary interference of another, not just to the extent that one happens to avoid interference of either an arbitrary or non-arbitrary sort. Freedom as non-domination is intuitively less demanding so far as it demonises only the arbitrary form of interference, therefore, and intuitively more demanding so far as it demonises even exposure to the possibility of such interference. It takes a soft line on the exercise of nonarbitrary power and a hard line on exposure to arbitrary power. The soft line means that non-arbitrary interference is not a compromise to freedom, so that the all-claim given has to be rejected. The hard line means that something other than an act of interference—the state of being exposed to arbitrary interference—does compromise freedom, so that the only-claim also has to be withdrawn. The source of these differences lies in the connection between exposure or vulnerability to arbitrary interference and the status of being the subject of another (Pettit 1997, 2002; Skinner 1997). To be exposed to arbitrary interference is always in some measure to endure subjection or subordination to another—to suffer their dominatio, in the phrase used by Roman republicans. The interference associated with domination will be arbitrary so far as it is controlled by the will or judgment of the interferer or the interferer’s principal— so far as it is controlled by that alien arbitrium—and is not forced to track the will or judgment of the interferee. The possibility of arbitrary interference will be reduced so far as the would-be interferers are inhibited by the costs involved

68 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

from attempting arbitrary interference; they may be inhibited by the threat of the law, or the possibility of retaliation, or the collateral damage they will do themselves, or whatever. Such agents may be able to interfere but only in a nonarbitrary manner: only in a manner that is ultimately controlled by the interferee, as in the case of Ulysses and his sailors. Or their access to interference may be more or less effectively blocked. The dominator escapes those inhibitions and, in the paradigmatic case, is able to interfere at will and with impunity. So far as the interference occurs at will it is arbitrary. So far as it materialises with impunity it testifies to domination. One final observation. The hard line that republicans take on exposure to arbitrary interference, and its effect on freedom, is probably more distinctive than the soft line taken on the exercise of non-arbitrary interference (Pettit 2002). While the exercise of non-arbitrary interference does not dominate people—it does not represent the presence of a master in their lives, so far as the interference is forced to track their express or readily expressible interests—it does clearly limit the range within which people can enjoy their non-domination. In other words, it conditions freedom as non-domination, in the way that situational factors may condition it—or condition freedom as non-interference. The exemplar of non-arbitrary interference for traditional republicans is the coercive law that has those features, whatever they are, that make it nondominating or arbitrary; different approaches emphasise different features but the idea is that such law will be forced to track the express or readily expressible interests that are common to the people. While republicans will emphasise that such law does not make people unfree, in the sense of dominating them and so compromising their freedom, they may of course acknowledge that it does condition that freedom: it reduces the range in which people can enjoy their undominated status. We may sum up the results of this discussion in Figure 2. Two Images of Human Agents I have argued elsewhere for a sociological explanation as to why the notion of freedom as non-interference took over in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century from the conception of freedom as non-domination: or more strictly, for why it took over in the work of authors like Jeremy Bentham and his even more influential follower, William Paley (Pettit 1997). Paley recognises the idea of freedom as non-domination as the received and common notion of freedom— this, in a book published in 1785—but argues paradoxically that it is too radical to be endorsed: it would ‘inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove’ (Paley 1825:168). The best explanation for Paley’s preference for the admittedly newfangled idea of freedom as non-interference is, I think, that while he was radical and original enough to think of women and workers as included in the compass of the state’s concern—in particular, its

REPUBLICANISM 69

FIGURE 2 THE ISSUES BETWEEN FREEDOM AS NON-INTERFERENCE AND NON-DOMINATION

concern for the freedom of its people—he was sufficiently realistic to see he would be laughed out of court if he argued that they should therefore be delivered from the domination that they suffered under contemporary domestic and master-servant law. Better argue for the more modest theory that they would be free so far as they were not actually interfered with, even if that result came about, not by dint of legal or social status, but by grace of gentlemanly manners in the one case, economic rationality in the other. I have also argued elsewhere that it makes for a better political philosophy—a philosophy in greater reflective equilibrium with our sense of what is right (Rawls 1971)—to conceptualise freedom as non-domination and to hold that the state should prioritise a concern for freedom in this sense, not just in the more common sense of non-interference (Pettit 1997). This normative argument complements the sociological, so far as it seems plausible to maintain that what was infeasible in Paley’s time—and what could not therefore be seriously recommended—has become feasible in ours. There is now good reason to argue that the state should aim to promote freedom as non-domination in people’s

70 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

relations with one another and to entrench the demands of non-domination in constraints on its own relations to those people. Here, however, I wish to go beyond those sociological and political arguments, and take a different tack. I ask whether the divergence between the approaches can be resolved by looking at how they relate to the best, comprehensive images of the human being available in contemporary thought. Any image of human beings is likely to project an ideal of what it is for a human agent to perform fully to type and to direct us to the sorts of factors that may compromise such a performance. An image will give support to a certain conception of freedom, therefore, so far as the compromising factors it identifies correspond to the hindrances indicted under that conception as obstacles to freedom. The support given may not establish the conception as decidedly the best available but it will help to reinforce the claims of that conception over competitors. We need to consider two questions, then. First, what are the most compelling images of the human subject on offer in contemporary thought, in particular social and political thought? And second, does any enable us to rule on the divergence between the liberal and republican conceptions of freedom? I address the first question in this section, the second in the next. I think that the most prominent image of the human being in contemporary social and political thought is decision-theoretic in character and that the only serious rival is not an inconsistent image but an image that adds further specifications to the decision-theoretic. I describe this as the discourse-theoretic image. I now proceed to give a sketch characterisation of the two. Before going on to that characterisation, however, it is worth mentioning that both of the images to be considered are very abstract specifications of constraints that we would expect any mature human being to meet, short of suffering some impairment. Thus the images abstract away from the detail that might distinguish more particular psychological and neuroscientific stories about human performance: say, stories about the extent to which our brains program many of our responses without our being aware of this debt to our subpersonal nature. The images discussed are cast at a level where the only rivals that have been seriously canvassed are those structuralist pictures under which human beings are nodes at which social forces operate, not centres of agency that have any interesting autonomy. I do not think that this sort of image has much claim on us and I note in any case that it would deny significance to every conception of liberty (for a critique, see Pettit 1993). The Decision-Theoretic Image The standard image of the human subject in contemporary social science, certainly social science of a more or less economistic cast, is best captured in the picture of agency projected in decision theory, particularly decision theory in the broad tradition of Bayes (Eells 1982: ch.l). This picture depicts the human agent as a locus at which two different sorts of states interact in the production of decision

REPUBLICANISM 71

and action. On the one hand, there are the agent’s credences or degrees of belief, and on the other his or her utilities or degrees of preference. These are defined over different states of the world—possible ways the world may be—and correspond to how the agent takes the actual world to be and wants the actual world to be. The Bayesian picture makes three claims about these credences and utilities. First, any agent who satisfies certain conditions of rationality, intuitively understood, can be represented as acting on the basis of a well-behaved credence function: a function that evolves under new evidence in such a way—to take the standard version of Bayesianism— that the unconditional credence given to any event in the wake of finding that evidence is the same as the credence that used to be given to the event conditional on the appearance of the evidence; the function evolves so as to satisfy what is known as conditionalisation. Second, any agent who satisfies intuitive conditions of rationality can be represented as having such a credence function and such a utility function that for any option involving different possible outcomes the agent will attach a degree of utility to that option—a degree of expected utility—which reflects the utility of each possible outcome and the credence given to its coming about in the event of the option being chosen; different Bayesian theories tell different stories about the exact way this is defined. And, third, as between different options with different degrees of expected utility, any agent of that intuitively rational kind will prefer the option with the highest degree of expected utility and choose accordingly; the agent will maximise expected utility. The Bayesian image of the human agent is rather formally and artificially constructed but the basic elements correspond fairly well to aspects of our makeup that are recognised in common sense. True, there are some striking gulfs between folk psychology and decision theory. For example, folk psychology depicts us as forming judgements as well as forming degrees of preference and credence, where judgements are on—off commitments; we do not judge in degrees, though we may judge that a scenario has this or that degree of probability. And folk psychology also depicts us as forming degrees of preference for different ways the world may be, whether these be probable prospects or determinate states of affairs, on the basis of judgments as to the properties of those scenarios (Pettit 1991). But nevertheless there is a fairly good fit between common sense and the basic thrust of decision theory. The notion of maximising expected utility is a formalisation of the ordinary notion of acting as our beliefs suggest we should act if we are to satisfy our desires. This fit is so good, indeed, that much of what is assumed about human agents in the broad reach of normative and policy-related thought sits well with essentially a decision-theoretic image.

72 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

The Discourse-Theoretic Image But if decision theory gives a picture of human psychology that picks out many elements already recognised about human agents in common sense —beliefs, desires, actions, and so on—there is one broad aspect of human performance that it overlooks.3 Human beings may be decision-theoretic subjects who act on the basis of beliefs and desires that can be modeled, however approximately, in certain credence and utility functions. But they are not just that. They are, more specifically, decision-theoretic subjects whose beliefs and desires evolve under the influence of discourse with one another, and indeed with themselves (Habermas 1984, 1989). Like many non-human animals, we human beings form beliefs and desires and act so as to satisfy our desires according to our beliefs, or at least we do so under intuitively favourable conditions and within intuitively feasible constraints; this is what gives application to the decision-theoretic image. But unlike non-human animals, we also give intentional expression to the ways things present themselves as being in the light of our beliefs and our desires. We do not just have the ability to believe that p; we can assert that p: we can use a voluntary sign, in Locke’s phrase, to represent how things present themselves as being, given that belief (Locke 1975, bk 3, ch.2). We do not just have the desire that q, we can assert that the prospect that q is attractive or whatever: we can use a voluntary sign to represent how things present themselves as being, given that desire. We can express our beliefs in regular, content-specifying sentences and we can express our desires in sentences that predicate attraction or something similar of the contents desired. The fact that we are articulate believers and desirers in this sense means that we can do something that marks us off very sharply from mute animals. All agents of the kind modeled in decision theory will have reasons to believe and to desire those things that it is rational for them to believe and desire according to the theory. Thus if an agent has a very high credence in q conditionally on p, and comes to give full credence to p, then he or she has reason to give a very high credence to q. Or if the agent gives full credence to the claim that there are two options available — to A or not to A—and assigns a higher expected utility to A-ing, then the agent will have reason to A rather than not to A. But that agents have such theoretical or practical reasons for believing and desiring things does not mean that they can see the reasons they have for making such responses, recognising them as reasons. The states in virtue of which they have reasons may operate within them without their having any beliefs— any credences—to the effect that there are such and such reasons available or, equivalently, to the effect that it is right or desirable or appropriate for them to believe that q, or to A. Thus the agents may be unable to form beliefs about what reasons they have and what it is right, therefore, for them to believe or desire; they may lack the normative concepts required.

REPUBLICANISM 73

This is likely to change, however, if the agents are articulate in the relevant domains. Articulate agents who have the reasons illustrated will be able to give expression to those reasons as such. They will be able to say to themselves in the first case: ‘p, and if p, very probably q’— assuming, for convenience, that this is the way to express such credences. They will find themselves disposed in virtue of having the beliefs thereby expressed to believe and say that it is very probable that q. And they will thereby put themselves in a position to register that the fact, as they believe it to be, that p and that if p, very probably q, is a reason for believing that it is very probable that q; it makes it right or appropriate or desirable, as decision theory implies, to believe that q. Although it is sketchy, this line of thought should prove generally persuasive; the controversy comes in the details of how it is to be filled out (Pettit 2001b). Assuming that it is correct, it means that articulate subjects will be able to see as such the reason that they have—and had all along—for giving a high credence to q: viz., that p and that if p, very probably q. By a parallel train of reasoning, articulate agents will also be able in this sense to see the reason that they have in the practical example, not just to have that reason in the fashion of mute animals. They will be able to say: there are two options, to A or not to A, and it is more attractive to A—assuming that ‘attractive’ expresses higher utility. And saying this, they will be able to register that that fact, so expressed, makes it right or appropriate or desirable for them, at least in the decision-theoretic sense, to A. Once we allow that articulate believers and desirers can see as such the reasons that they have for believing and desiring various things—see those reasons as well as having them—we can discern the role that discourse is capable of playing in their lives. For assuming that they have a common currency of expression, and that this is a matter of common awareness—(see Pettit 1993, chs 2, 4)—they will each be able in principle to present another with reasons there are for the other to believe or to desire this or that (Pettit 200 la). They can communicate with one another to the effect that p, thereby offering those who believe that if p, very probably q, a reason to believe that it is very probable that q. And so on in other cases. They will be able to advise one another on what they should believe and desire, then, and they will be able to debate with one another about what they should believe and desire in common (for more on reasons to desire see Pettit 2001b). They will be able to reason together, as we say. I think of discourse as consisting primarily in this process of co-reasoning with other people, although I recognise that, once learned, the process is one that a person may equally be able to conduct in the internal forum. To say that we are discursive creatures means by my lights, then, that we are decision-theoretic subjects who are further characterised by a nest of distinctive abilities. We have the ability to articulate our beliefs and desires and related states; the ability to see as such the reasons for forming further beliefs and desires that those states may give us; and the ability, in consequence, to share and exchange such reasons with others. As discursive and not just decision-

74 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

FIGURE 3 TWO IMAGES OF HUMAN AGENCY

theoretic creatures, we have access to a special way of acquiring reasons and a special way of being alerted to the reasons that we already have. The two images described in this section can be usefully summarised in Figure 3. The Resolution of the Issues So much for the two most compelling images of agency in contemporary social and political thought. I now wish to look at how the adoption of one or another image is likely to impact on one’s view of how the differences between liberals and republicans should be resolved. A Decision-Theoretic Ideal Suppose we adopt the decision-theoretic image of human agency, ignoring the discursive aspect of people’s competence. Where is this likely to lead us—if anywhere—in thinking about which hindrances to choice should be regarded as inimical to freedom, which not? And how in particular is it likely to guide us on the differences between the rival conceptions of freedom as non-interference, on the one hand, and as non-domination on the other? The decision-theoretic image will provide a clue to how we should think of freedom only if it helps us to identify a type of agent-performance that may be more

REPUBLICANISM 75

or less approximated by different individuals, or by the same individual in different situations, and that represents a decision-theoretically unfaultable ideal; it involves the agent performing fully to the type that decision theory projects on agents. Is there any ideal of performance, then, that stands out under this approach? Decision theory certainly suggests that the more that agents conform to the demands of rationality in the way they update their beliefs and desires and make decisions in the light of them, the more fully they conform to its specifications on agency. Agents will differ on how broad are the limits within which rationality is feasible for them, and on how special are the favourable circumstances under which they succeed in being rational, and decision theory would naturally identify someone as measuring up more fully to the constraints on agents, the wider those limits and the less special those circumstances. This ruling is of no use in the debate between our two conceptions of freedom, however, because the issues between them do not arise on that psychological front. As we saw, they may each allow that there is a sense of freedom—autonomy— that is enhanced by removing psychological constraints on rationality but for the essentially political purposes to which the conceptions are tailored, such constraints are not in the picture. Is there a similar ideal to be extracted from the decision-theoretic image that is likely to prove relevant in non-psychological domains: say, in judging on how far different situational and interpersonal hindrances may impact on the ideal working of the decision-theoretic subject? If there are, then it would make sense to see these as hindrances that are particularly relevant to freedom. On the face of it, the decision-theoretic image is not going to be very helpful. Consider a hindrance of the sort that both liberals and republicans will indict as inimical to freedom: an act of arbitrary interference in someone’s life, in particular the sort of arbitrary interference that comes involves a coercive threat. While this will be inimical to freedom under both conceptions, it is not clear that it prevents the agent performing fully to decision-theoretic type. After all, when the agent considers the threat, looking at the probability of its being carried out and at the disutility it would impose, he or she is acting true to precisely that type. One can lose one’s freedom in some measure, it seems, and still exemplify ideal decision-theoretic functioning. I see only one way in which we might hope to extract a more helpful ideal from decision theory. This would involve introducing the notion of the self, and arguing that an agent will perform fully to decision-theoretic type only so far as it is truly the agent’s self that operates in determining which of a number of options to choose. Let the agent’s beliefs and desires be tampered with, as in the case of the coercive threat, and the self of the agent is not the only presence relevant to what is done; let the agent be left to his or her own devices and it is, or at least may be. Unfortunately, I do not think that this resort to the notion of the self and to the ideal of self-determination that goes with it will be of any particular help. The

76 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

problem is that it is often completely unclear where the boundary between self and non-self should be drawn; certainly there is nothing in decision theory to dictate its location. When his sailors interfere non-arbitrarily with Ulysses, following his earlier instructions, do they represent the presence of a non-self in the determination of his actions? In one sense, yes: after all, the sailors are thwarting his current preferences when they refuse to let him go. But in another sense, no: they are merely implementing his own longer-term policy as to how he should behave. Or consider the other sort of case that divides republicans from liberals. Does the person who has to keep a powerful presence sweet, but who does not suffer actual interference, act true to self or not? Does Nora in A Doll’s House give expression to her self or to the non-self represented by her husband, Thorvald, when she chooses to make herself pleasant and to hide the macaroons that she knows he disapproves of ? Again, it is hard to say; decision theory does not put a firm enough boundary in place between the self and the non-self for us to be able to rule on whether or not her actions are self-determined. I think that these observations should make clear just how unlikely it is that the decision-theoretic image of the human subject, all on its own, can be used as a ground for resolving the differences between our two conceptions of freedom. We must look elsewhere if we are to find any help in this task. A Discourse-Theoretic Ideal The decision-theoretic image of agency would have served the purpose we wanted it to serve had it been able to give determinate shape to the ideal of selfdetermination, policing a firm boundary between the self and the non-self. The discourse-theoretic image will serve this purpose only if it can give relatively determinate shape to a similar sort of ideal. And it turns out, so I now argue, that it can. It directs us fairly unambiguously to an ideal that I describe as that of having discursive status. The first thing to notice by way of bringing out this claim is that the discoursetheoretic image does not suggest that self-determination, understood in any straightforward way, is inherently attractive. Suppose that I act on my own erroneous beliefs or act out of my own fallacious reasoning, thereby determining all on my own what it is that I do. How should I feel about the possibility that I might have been put right by another, having the error or the fallacy made clear to me? Should I feel that it’s as well that didn’t happen: that in that case I would have lost some of my own control, being influenced by another? Surely not. Surely not, in particular, under the discourse-theoretic image of the human subject as someone capable not just of having reasons, but of seeing reasons and of having reasons made salient by others. There is nothing objectionable under this image about others exercising an influence over me, provided that the exercise is reason mediated: provided that it is implemented by giving me reasons that I may or may not act on, depending on whether I endorse them.

REPUBLICANISM 77

Moving now to a more positive note, what does the discourse-theoretic image hold out as the positive ideal for agent-performance? The image requires that the agent be capable of processing reasons, having full ratiocinative capacity. But it also suggests that things will go better in its own terms to the extent that the agent is subject to the discursive influence of others—to the extent that the agent is able to access and adjudicate the sorts of reasons that others can provide—and to the extent that he or she is not subject to any influence that is discursively inimical. The agent must have, not just the ratiocinative capacity to process reasons, but also the relational power of occupying in common with others a space that mediates discourse-friendly influence and only discourse-friendly influence. The agent must enjoy what I describe as discursive status (Pettit 200la) . The ability to process reasons is a psychological, ratiocinative capacity, the ability to access reasons is a sociological, relational power: a power that enables one to engage in discursive influence with others, while being more or less proof against the discourse-unfriendly influences that they may exercise. Some discourse-unfriendly influences would reduce one’s capacity to act as the relevant reasons require, whether by removing options, denying one information, or affecting one’s psychology in a mesmerising way. Other such influences would rig the reasons from which one deliberates, as in the case of the coercive threat: one is free to reason when a threat is made but the threat rigs the premises on which deliberation is conducted. There are many non-discursive influences that people will have on one another which will leave their discursive status unaffected—influences like those involved in joking, teasing, cajoling and so on —but the influences mentioned will not just be non-discursive: they will be inherently inimical to discursive influence and discursive status.4 I have been arguing that things will go better with an agent, in the terms of discourse theory, so far as that agent enjoys discursive status. That this is so, indeed, is marked within discursive practice itself. Such practice singles out episodes in which a subject has the ratiocinative and relational power involved in discursive status as in a certain sense ideal. Consider the way discursive practice rules on episodes where we made a promise, or avowed a belief or desire, for example, but later failed, apparently in breach of discursive standards, to live up to it. For some episodes we will be able to exonerate ourselves by reference to some feature of the episode itself, arguing that we were temporarily impaired, or under duress, or afraid for our lives, or whatever; those factors will be identified as inhibiting the ideal performance that would incur full discursive responsibility. For other episodes we will not be able to exonerate ourselves just by reference to any feature of the episode itself; there will be nothing about the episode, by the norms of discoursive practice, that allows such exoneration. These latter sorts of episode are implicitly represented, then, as conforming to a certain ideal that is endogenous to discoursive practice. But the cases so singled out, lacking any feature that would exonerate a subject from discursive responsibility, look to be precisely the sorts of cases where the subject has

78 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

discursive status. They are cases where the subject is not ratiocinatively impaired or relationally oppressed in a way that would provide an excuse for noncompliance with commitments made there. They are cases, presumptively, where the subject has full discursive status. Given that the discourse-theoretic image directs us to an ideal of discursive status, the question is whether that ideal can help us to rule on the difference between the conceptions of freedom as respectively non-interference and nondomination. I think, to come finally to the punch-line, that it can. The image provides clear and unambiguous support for the republican way of conceiving freedom. The republican conception of freedom is characterised, as we have seen, by the hard line that it takes on vulnerability to arbitrary power, arguing that this in itself reduces freedom, and by the soft line it takes on the exercise of nonarbitrary power: here it argues that while the exercise of such power may reduce the range of choice in which people can enjoy undominated status—while it may condition their freedom as non-domination—it is not a dominating influence itself and does not compromise their freedom. Both lines make good sense within the discursive image of agency, given that that image naturally supports an ideal under which people have discursive status in relation to one another. Take the hard line first. The discursive image will support this line, so far as the factor that is demonised—exposure to arbitrary power—is something that reduces the possibility of enjoying full discursive status. And of course it is. There is an old injunction, deriving from the republican Quakers of the seventeenth century, that one should always speak truth to power. The very fact that this is something enjoined as a norm which people should try to fulfil gives vivid expression to the fact that it is very difficult to speak truth to power and, more generally, that it is very difficult just to act as one might be independently inclined to do in the presence of power. So far as people live in the force-field of another’s power, being exposed to the possibility of that individual’s interfering arbitrarily in their lives, it will make very good sense to keep that person sweet: to say and do things that placate and ingratiate, to avoid saying and doing things that might give offence or cause displeasure, and to resort to guile and cunning in order to hide any sayings or doings that might turn the powerful against them. It will make good sense to self-abase and to self-censor. And not only is this so. Living in the presence of such a power, no matter how forthright the weaker might be disposed to be, will give others reason to think that anything they say and do must bear the warping marks of the force-field in which it materialises. It will not be a matter of common awareness, then, that when they speak they show their minds, and that when they act they manifest their values. On the contrary, they will be deprived of the credence that is required for enjoying discursive status in relation to others. If they speak well or act favourably towards the power in their lives, that will easily be taken as sycophancy or servility. And if they speak badly or act unfavourably that will equally readily be taken as an expression of resentment or defiance, not as a

REPUBLICANISM 79

credible, sincere revelation of how they think. Either way, such people will have their words and even their actions deprived of their ordinary social significance. They will be discursively disenfranchised. This should be sufficient to show just how powerfully the discursive image of agency, with its associated ideal of discursive status, supports the hard republican line on exposure to arbitrary power. But what of the soft republican line, according to which the exercise of non-arbitrary power in relation to a person or to a group of people does not compromise their freedom, even if it conditions it? Whenever interference is non-arbitrary, it will be forced to track the express or readily expressible interests of the interferee. This means that while it is imposed by the hands of another, it is subject in a certain sense to the virtual power of the interferees. The interferees will have a standing which means that should the interference not conform to a certain pattern—a pattern answering to their express or readily expressible interests—then they can prevent the interference from occurring or continuing, they can force a revision in the pattern it takes, or at least they can punish the interferer for a departure from pattern and so inhibit such departures. Ulysses has such virtual power over the sailors, not just by dint of having instructed them to bind him, but so far as his standing means he can later punish them for having disobeyed. The people who live under a nonarbitrary government—a government that can genuinely be called to book, should it fail to track the common interests that crystallise in their deliberations— equally enjoy a virtual power over their political governors. Just as the refusal of the sailors to release Ulysses, then, does not reduce his freedom as such, so it may be said—and has traditionally been said by republicans—that the taxes and laws and penalties coercively imposed by that government will not reduce the freedom of the people as such, though it may of course condition it. This said, it should be clear that wherever someone’s interference in a person’s life is non-arbitrary, that interference does not take from the person’s discursive status. It will leave their ratiocinative capacity unimpaired, of course, and more importantly it will do nothing to reduce their power in relation to others: in particular, their power of entering discursive relations with others, while remaining proof against discourse-unfriendly influences. Whatever happens to the person in the course of non-arbitrary interference happens in a way that they can discursively challenge, say on the grounds that the interference does not answer to a pattern they authorise, and so it does not take in any way from their status as subjects capable of commanding a discursive hearing in relationships with other parties. As mentioned earlier, I have argued elsewhere for a revival of the republican idea of liberty, on the grounds that it was given up under pressures that no longer obtain—those that made the ideal too radical for Paley and classical liberals— and that it holds out the prospect of a theory of government that is in reflective equilibrium with the judgements that many of us are disposed to endorse. I think that the observations in this essay provide substantial reinforcement for those arguments. They show fairly conclusively that under an image of agency that few

80 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

FIGURE 4 TWO IDEALS OF HUMAN AGENCY

of us will find ourselves able to reject, the two distinguishing marks of the republican conception make the best possible sense. Acknowledge that we are not just decision-theoretically rational, but also capable of discursive reasoning, and it becomes immediately intelligible why our agency is diminished by having to act in the presence of an arbitrary power, and why it remains intact under a nonarbitrary interference that we virtually control. It becomes immediately intelligible why republicans should take a hard line on the first and a soft line on the second. The position we have reached in this third section of the essay can be summed up in Figure 4. Indeed the Figure serves equally well to sum up the claims of the essay as a whole. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An ancestor of this essay was given at a conference in Palermo, September 2001, where I learned from the criticisms of my commentator, lan Carter. It was later presented at a conference on republicanism in the University of Montreal, and at colloquia in the University of Michigan and the Australian National University. I benefitted greatly from the comments received at all those venues.

REPUBLICANISM 81

NOTES 1. Not only am I happy to admit that the conception of freedom as non-interference is not the only conception that might be described as liberal; I am also happy to agree with Charles Larmore that even the republican conception would count, in some books, as liberal. I tend myself to use ‘liberal’ for movements that began about the time that the word came into use in the early nineteenth century: in particular, for the self-consciously novel approach to freedom and government associated in England with Jeremy Bentham and, even more influentially, with William Paley. See Pettit 1997, ch.1. 2. For the record, there is extra reason why freedom as non-domination should be radical: viz., that if someone is poor or insecure or whatever, then they are much more liable to domination by others: that is, much more liable in these terms to have their freedom compromised. See Pettit 1997. 3. This is what explains the failure to take account of judgment, noted in an earlier comment, though I shall not address that particular claim here (McGeer and Pettit 2001). 4. How does discursive status, so understood, relate to self-determination? It requires, not so much the rule of the self, as the rule of the reasonable: not so much the rule of the autos or self as the rule of the orthos or the right—that is, the right as one (reliably) identifies it. This ideal might be described, in a variation on the usual etymology, as ‘orthonomy’ rather than autonomy (Pettit and Smith 1996).

REFERENCES Bacharach, M. & S.Hurley, eds. Essays in the foundations of Decision Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Braithwaite, J. & P.Pettit. 1990. Not Just Deserts: A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, I. 1996. ‘The concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen’. Politeia, 12 / 43–44), 7–29. Eells, E. 1982. Rational Decision and Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, J. 1984–1989. A Theory of Communicative Action. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Polity Press. 1995. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Locke, J. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGeer, V. & P.Pettit 2001. ‘The self-regulating mind’. Language and Communication22, 281–99. Miller, D. 1984. ‘Constraints on freedom’. Ethics 94, 66–86. ed.1993. Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgenbesser, S., P.Suppes & M.White, eds.Philosophy, Science and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel. New York: St Martin’s Press. Nozick, R. 1969. ‘Coercion’. Morgenbesser et al. 1969:440–72.

82 DISCOURSE THEORY AND REPUBLICAN FREEDOM

Paley, W. 1825. The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Vol 4, Collected Works. London, C. and J.Rivington. Pettit, P. 1991. ‘Decision theory and folk psychology’. Bacharach and Hurley 1991: 147–75. 1993. The Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 200la. A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency.Cambridge and New York: Polity and Oxford University Press. 2001b.‘Two sources of morality’. Social Philosophy and Policy 18/2, 102–28. 2002.‘Keeping republican freedom simple’.Political Theory 30/3:339–56. Pettit, P. and M.Smith, 1996. ‘Freedom in belief and desire’. Journal of Philosophy 93, 429–49. Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford:Oxford University Press. Skinner, Q. 1997.Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Steiner, H. 1993. ‘lndividual Liberty’. Miller 1993. 1994. An Essay on Rights.Oxford: Blackwell. Sugden, R. 1998. ‘The metric of opportunity’. Economics and Philosophy, 14, 307–37. Taylor, C. 1995. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, M. 1982. Community, Anarchy and Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Parijs, P. 1995. Real Freedom for All. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7 Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom CHARLES LARMORE

In recent years there has occurred a remarkable surge of interest in classical republicanism. Among the different currents in this republican revival, the most important, I believe, traces itself back through Machiavelli and his Discorsi sopra la prima deca de Tito Livio to the political thought of ancient Rome. It has been the subject of a series of important historical studies by Quentin Skinner,1 and in the Anglo-American world it has found its most ambitious theoretician in Philip Pettit. Indeed, the republican model of political life has received in his hands the sort of detailed exposition which it never enjoyed before. His book, Republicanism, is a landmark work (Pettit 1999). A few minor differences apart, Skinner and Pettit have essentially the same vision of what is of enduring importance in the republican tradition, namely its understanding of freedom. In this conception they are joined by a third contemporary neo-republican, Maurizio Viroli.2 I am convinced that the republican theory of freedom, which the three of them have been at one in advancing, represents an invaluable contribution to our political thinking. All the same, I also believe that they have not properly understood the true character of their achievement. Since Pettit is the most systematic thinker in the group, I shall begin by laying out this neo-republicanism primarily in the terms which he has provided, though I shall also embroider some of the points in my own way, this being an expression of my large measure of agreement. My ultimate aim, however, is to examine this movement’s problematic relation to the modern liberal tradition. Three Concepts of Liberty At the centre of the neo-republican enterprise is a conception of political liberty which Pettit and the others call ‘non-domination’. According to this view, we are free to the extent that we do not find ourselves under the domination of others, subject to their will and thus exposed to the vicissitudes of their desires. The conception goes back to Roman law, according to which a free person is one who, unlike a slave, does not find himself in potestate domini. But in the republican tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its meaning broadened into a comprehensive political ideal. ‘Liberty’, wrote Algernon

84 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

Sidney, the great republican thinker executed for treason in 1683, ‘solely consists in an independency upon the will of another’ (Sidney 1996:17). This notion of freedom, we may begin by noting, refers to a condition in which we can find ourselves, namely, the condition where we are not living under the thumb of another. It does not mean the exercise of a capacity, and so in particular it does not signify the control which an individual or community exercises over the shape of its own existence. Another way to put this contrast lies with the categories deployed by Isaiah Berlin in his classic essay of 1958, ‘Two concepts of liberty’ (reprinted in Berlin 1969:118–72). The idea of freedom as non-domination forms a ‘negative’, not a ‘positive’ conception. In general, identifying freedom with a condition entails equating it with the non-occurrence of those factors which are regarded as significantly diminishing a person’s possibilities, and in the present case the factor whose absence is deemed essential to freedom is living at the mercy of another’s will. Nothing is said, so far as freedom itself is concerned, about what is to be done with the possibilities secured by the absence of domination. Freedom as non-domination does not therefore consist in rational autonomy or democratic self-government, as freedom has often been positively defined. Much less does it signify the activity by which we supposedly realise our true nature or give expression to our higher self, which are the sorts of conclusions to which positive conceptions of freedom typically lead. To be free from the domination of a master does not mean being the master of oneself, since it is a condition which people may enjoy in a variety of ways—as much by letting themselves be carried away by passion (a dangerous thing when at the mercy of the powerful) as by bringing themselves under the rule of their own reason. Positive conceptions of freedom are not without their plausibility, and I shall return to this point below. But in Pettit’s eyes as in mine, they seem too narrow to capture all that we value as political freedom. A free people is one whose freedom consists in the nature and the extent of the possibilities which lie open to them. Their freedom extends beyond their participation in democratic selfgovernment, and it need not involve their shaping their lives ‘autonomously’, according to a plan of their own devising. Political freedom is best understood as a ‘negative’ concept referring to a condition of existence, rather than as a ‘positive’ concept denoting a particular sort of activity. Nonetheless, freedom as non-domination differs fundamentally from the understanding of negative freedom that Berlin himself advocated. In fact, one of Pettit’s most important contributions consists in having broadened the range of theoretical options. Negative freedom as Berlin conceived of it is the domain of action where individuals can do as they may want without interference on the part of others. Like Hobbes and Bentham before him, he viewed individual freedom as the absence of actual obstacles. ‘A Free-Man’, Hobbes declared, ‘is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to do’, and Berlin explicitly endorsed this definition (Hobbes 1968: ptII, ch.21, para.2; Berlin 1969:123 n.2).3 To be sure,

REPUBLICANISM 85

Berlin cautioned that a person’s freedom should not be said to consist in the absence of obstacles to the fulfilment of his desires. Such a definition would allow the person to increase his freedom simply by extinguishing his unsatisfied desires. The obstacles relevant for judging the extent of a person’s negative liberty ought rather to be conceived as obstacles to his possibilities, as roadblocks standing in the way of the courses of action that he might choose to pursue (Berlin 1969:139).4 Berlin did not waver, however, in defining our negative freedom by reference to actual interference, even when it is our possibilities which are thereby limited. As a result, people must count as free in this sense, even when another could encroach upon their projects (present or possible) and yet decides not to do so. Negative freedom, Berlin once remarked, is not compromised by a despotic regime, so long as the despot happens to be benevolent and chooses to pursue an indulgent policy toward his population. Reserving all political power to himself, such a ruler may otherwise leave his subjects a large measure of freedom to pursue their various projects as they please.5 Yet surely it is wrong, Pettit objects, to hold that people are then free, inasmuch as they pursue their projects at the mercy of a prince who, well disposed for the moment, can at any time change his mind and policies. So too workers are not free if, to have a job at all and earn enough to survive, they have no choice but to work for a single employer who, well meaning though he may be, can at any time shut up shop or move his enterprise elsewhere. Freedom really entails an absence of both actual and possible interference at the hands of others. Or more exactly, Pettit adds, it consists in being exempt from all such arbitrary interference. For suppose that we inhabit a society governed in accord with just laws: we will consequently not possess an immunity from all interference in our affairs. Even then, the state must stand ready to discourage and punish any infractions of the laws. But the point is that such conditions, where the threat of arbitrary interference has disappeared, mark a qualitative difference. The rule of law does not amount to one form of domination having been exchanged for another, as though its utility consisted in offering us a greater net balance of freedom over constraint than we would otherwise have if living under despotic rule or under no rule at all (in a ‘state of nature’). Domination itself, so Pettit insists, has come to an end when the authority of just laws replaces the will of particular individuals. Freedom as the absence of domination differs therefore in two respects from any view like Berlin’s that equates negative freedom with the absence of obstacles (Pettit 1999:22ff.). On the one hand, domination can occur without any actual interference. Our freedom is abridged by the simple fact that we depend on the goodwill of others, since their power to meddle in our life can be so great that, even if they choose not to exercise it, we find ourselves obliged to anticipate their possible actions, modify our plans, and curry their favour. On the other hand, every act or threat of interference need not constitute domination. If just

86 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

laws have the function of making us free by checking the arbitrary will of others, their influence on our conduct and the prohibitions they impose do not amount to a reduction in our freedom. It is on this latter score that the two ‘negative’ conceptions of freedom differ most tellingly. For Hobbes and Bentham and those who follow in their footsteps, every law as such diminishes our freedom, even if its objective is to prevent the greater loss of freedom that would ensue from the absence of law. Berlin himself made the point explicitly. ‘Law is always a “fetter”’, he wrote, ‘even if it protects you from being bound in chains that are heavier than those of the law’. Similarly, ‘every law seems to me to curtail some liberty, although it may be a means to increasing another’ (Berlin 1969:123 n., xlix). On this view, civil freedom, the liberty we enjoy within political society, becomes the silence of the law, since all law is in itself an intrusion and liberty begins where law ends. As Hobbes wrote, ‘The Liberty of a Subject lyeth therefore only in those things, which in regulating their actions, the Sovereign hath praetermitted.’ Or again: ‘Liberties…depend on the silence of the law. In cases where the Sovereign has prescribed no rule, there the Subject hath the liberty to do, or forbeare, according to his own discretion’ (Hobbes 1968: pt II, ch.21, paras 6 and 18).6 According to the republican conception, by contrast, law and liberty are not intrinsically opposed. The exact nature of their relationship depends on the character of the laws in question. To the extent that just laws deliver us from the relations of domination in which the natural course of things would otherwise place us, they make up freedom’s condition of possibility, not its antithesis (Pettit 1999:35; Viroli 2002: 9). Here is the way that Machiavelli summed up the point: Only the name of freedom is extolled by the ministers of license, who are the men of the people, and by the ministers of servitude, who are the nobles, neither of them desiring to be subject either to the laws or to men. But when it happens…that by the good fortune of a city there rises in it a wise, good, and powerful citizen by whom laws are ordered by which these humors of the nobles and the men of the people are quieted or restrained so that they cannot do evil, then that city can be called free. (Istorie fiorentine, IV. 1) Freedom and Self-Government In the light of these initial observations, it should be plain that the idea of freedom as non-domination, distinct though it is from the ‘positive’ conception of freedom as autonomy, provides nonetheless a natural rationale for the institution of democratic self-rule (Pettit 1999:8, 183ff.). Universal suffrage and the widespread participation of citizens in political life offer the best guarantee that the laws will be just, instead of serving particular interests and private concentrations of power. For those who see the essence of freedom as the

REPUBLICANISM 87

absence of interference, there exists no such internal connection between liberty and democracy or self-rule. For them, as we have seen, extensive freedom may co-exist with government by the few. Berlin was displaying an admirable consistency when he declared that ‘freedom in [my] sense is not, at any rate logically, connected with democracy or self-government’ (Berlin 1969:129–30). He was drawing the same implication from the notion of freedom as noninterference which Hobbes did when observing in a famous passage of the Leviathan (directed explicitly against the republican writers of his time): There is written on the Turrets of the city of Lucca in great characters at this day, the world LIBERTAS; yet no man can thence inferre, that a particular man has more Libertie…there, than in Constantinople. Whether a Commonwealth be Monarchicall, or Popular, the Freedome is still the same (Hobbes 1968: pt II, ch.21, para.8). For Hobbes like Berlin, freedom depends on the absence of actual interference, whatever may be the source of the limits on conduct represented by the law. Once freedom is understood as the absence of domination, its relation to the idea of democracy changes completely. Yet, once again, we need to keep in mind that such a conception does not entail equating freedom with the exercise of selfgovernment. The kind of republican theory that it inspires—Pettit calls it ‘neoRoman’ (not least because its early-modern exponents drew so often upon Machiavelli’s Discorsi)7 – has therefore quite a different shape than another strand of political thought which has also styled itself ‘republican’, but which has taken its bearings from a positive notion of freedom. This other version of republican thought Pettit appropriately calls ‘neo-Athenian’, and he finds it exemplified by writers such as Hannah Arendt and Michael Sandel. Often invoking a highly idealised view of the Greek polis, these thinkers express an unqualified admiration for ‘the liberty of the ancients’. They tend to identify freedom with self-rule because they regard political life, in which common purposes are discussed, decided and acted upon, as the primary domain in which the virtues are exercised and the human good achieved. Other names too might be added to Pettit’s list of contemporary ‘neoAthenians’. Indeed, I believe that a purer example of this intellectual current than the two figures whom he mentions is J.G.A.Pocock, though I hasten to add that I mean, not so much Pocock the historian whose admirable book, The Machiavellian Moment, played an essential role in the rediscovery of the republican writers of early-modern Europe, as rather Pocock in his own theorising moments. The key text is his essay of 1981, ‘Virtues, Rights, and Manners’. There Pocock asserts that the republican idea of freedom was at bottom the ‘positive’ one of participating in the activity of self-rule because it drew on the civic-humanist vision that ‘homo is naturally a citizen and most fully himself in a vivere civile’ (Pocock 1985b:39).8 During the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Pocock argues, this republican conception

88 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

was shoved aside by a ‘jurisprudential’ paradigm that regarded freedom as merely the ability to pursue one’s own affairs unimpeded by others. The language of virtue gave way to the language of rights, as the focus of attention shifted from the relations in which people stand to one another, sharing in the construction of their common life, to the relations in which they stand to things (that is, to property), secure from interference on the part of others. Pocock’s historical thesis may appear attractive in its simplicity, yet it is too simple to be true. The increasing importance of rights in early modern thought did not reflect solely a concern for the protection and disposability of property. On the contrary, the notion of rights— particularly those of conscience and free association—recommended itself precisely as a way to order the relations between people themselves, in light of the deep and abiding disagreements which had emerged about the nature of the human good. The language of fundamental rights was a modern development, not merely because it served ‘bourgeois’ interests, but also because it aimed to put an end to the Wars of Religion and provide the new basis of a common life. Not by accident, it played a significant role even in the thought of seventeenth-century thinkers who, taking Machiavelli’s Discorsi as their inspiration, must certainly count as ‘republican’, but whose republicanism differed markedly from Pocock’s in that they defined liberty as not living at the mercy of another’s will and did so not least with an eye to that form of domination which consists in some single but contested vision of the human good enjoying a favoured status in the political community. Algernon Sidney is a perfect case in point (see Houston 1991). Like other figures in the ‘neo-Athenian’ current, Pocock regards the virtues of active citizenship as defining the essence of the human good. Whence his conviction that sharing in the exercise of self-rule represents the core meaning of freedom. The different pattern of republican thought which Pettit champions sees selfgovernment as instead a pre-condition for the maintenance of a free society, freedom itself consisting in an individual’s being able, out of the shadow of the arbitrary will of others, to pursue his good as he best understands it.9 Democracy’s relation to freedom is then that of an essential means, instead of being a privileged expression. Certainly, this conception too must insist on the importance of participation in political life. But in contrast to the neo-Athenian model, it has no reason to engage in the inflationist rhetoric which trumpets civic virtue as the very heart and soul of the moral life. As a result, there need be no obscurity about the quite specific tasks which civic virtue is called upon to fulfil. Attention can be given to the particular traits of character which citizens must possess, if the distinctive feature of a republican regime, the substitution of the authority of law for personal dependence, is to be sustained. Thus it is that Pettit himself distinguishes three basic habits of mind that the citizens of a republican polity must display (Pettit 1999:246ff.; see also Pettit 1998:81, 87–9). First, the rule of law can be a reality only in a society where citizens respect the law for its own sake, instead of seeking to circumvent it or adhering to it solely out of a fear of sanctions. It is also necessary, if the law is

REPUBLICANISM 89

not to turn into an instrument of particular interests, that citizens make a point of taking part in public life, so that their own needs and concerns are heard. Finally, they must practice a constant vigilance, staying on the lookout for excessive concentrations of power, which never cease to be a danger. These traits of character are far from spontaneous. They require fostering, and may be considerably weakened today by the countless pressures encouraging a consumerist approach to social life, in which each person seeks to make the best bargain for himself instead of working with others to tame the powers, particularly economic, which set the terms for their calculations. But the key theoretical point is that civic virtue as Pettit defines it is a specifically political virtue, necessary for the securing of a society without domination. Its role is to make possible the pursuit of different visions of the good life and not to define the human good itself. Freedom and Pluralism The republican conception of freedom as the absence of domination has many attractive features, some of which I have already indicated. It would be unwise, however, to conclude that non-domination constitutes the true meaning of political freedom. A number of distinct values, none of them negligible, have each taken the name of freedom, and our concern ought to be, not to settle which of them really captures its essence, but to recognise the differences between these ideals, chart their motivations and interconnections, and determine the conditions under which one or the other of them may be at stake or prove to be of greater importance. Berlin himself, I believe, saw things in basically this way. He had no intention of arguing that negative liberty (as he understood it) forms the whole of freedom. His aim was to point out the difference between non-interference and self-rule as well as to show that a single-minded devotion to the latter conception of freedom, pursued at the expense of the negative freedoms enshrined in individual rights, can have totalitarian consequences. In Berlin’s eyes, the positive freedom involved in democratic self-government was also an important value, though one having chiefly an instrumental basis as the best means for protecting the rights of the individual. The same outlook of value-pluralism does not, I believe, inform the neorepublican discussions of freedom. To be sure, freedom from domination represents an important value, and Pettit in particular has shown how its contours differ significantly from those of non-interference and self-rule. He also has presented good reasons for attributing to this republican ideal a more fundamental role in our political life than the other two ideas of freedom. It may well be true that democratic self-government draws its chief rationale from the need to do away with relations of domination, and that ceasing to live at the mercy of powerful individuals and interests is of far greater moment than simply living unobstructed by others.

90 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

Nonetheless, it ought not to be denied that the absence of interference, the ability to act as we wish, is also one of the things we mean by ‘freedom’, and its abridgement, even for the sake of a greater good, will often and rightly be seen as a loss. Some laws, however just they may be (one need only think of tax codes, for example), require us to give up some of our freedom to do as we please which we may reasonably regret having to surrender, even if on balance we judge it to be for the best. Or again, suppose that two possible laws each equally limit the influence of powerful interests, yet differ in how much they interfere with the daily lives of citizens; surely we ought to prefer the less intrusive one and for the reason that the absence of interference, all other things being the same, is something of value. By arguing as he does that non-domination is the correct view of political liberty, Pettit seems committed to denying—and to my mind, wrongly—that acting unimpeded by others is itself a form of freedom as well as a good in its own right, even if one of secondary importance. Other contemporary republican theorists proceed in a similarly monistic fashion. Though Skinner differs a bit from Pettit on the nature of freedom, he too fails—one might say, for the opposite reason—to recognise that the idea of freedom is in reality the site of a number of competing human goods. In his opinion, the neo-Roman line of thought stretching from Machiavelli through the English commonwealthmen of the seventeenth century measured a person’s freedom by the ‘absence of constraint’, meaning by constraint (here his point of disagreement with Pettit) both interference and domination (Skinner 1998:82–4). Perhaps certain writers did engage in so expansive a way of thinking. But if they did, it was not by virtue of deploying any single coherent notion of freedom, as Skinner seems to assume. Non-interference and non-domination give rise to contrary conceptions of freedom, which are destined to conflict, as the opposing views they imply about the relation between freedom and law suffice to show. In a number of writings subsequent to the publication of Republicanism, including the 1999 postscript, Pettit inches his way closer to a recognition of the fact that ‘freedom’ is the name of a number of distinct values, none of them insignificant, although they may prove to be of different moment. Sometimes he observes, for instance, that interference as such constitutes a ‘secondary evil’. Yet to the extent that he also phrases this point by saying that interference counts as a ‘secondary offence against freedom’ (compare Pettit 1999:301–02, and Pettit 2002:342, 347), he falls back into a unitary conception of freedom, just as he did in the book itself when he described the non-arbitrary interference represented by the rule of law as making people, if not ‘unfree’ (as domination does), then ‘non-free’ all the same (Pettit 1999:26, 76). The truth he halfglimpses but never acknowledges is that ‘freedom’ in this context is really the name of two different values, equally real, though of unequal importance. Another, very interesting sign of Pettit’s lack of clarity on this issue is his repeated disclaimer of ‘any Rousseauesque paradox to the effect that submission to the law is a form of self-emancipation’ (Pettit 1999:302; also Pettit 2002: 346ff.). In reality, the supposed paradox is no paradox at all, and the feeling that

REPUBLICANISM 91

it is one comes from failing to distinguish the different meanings of freedom. To the extent that freedom is understood as the absence of domination, just laws form its precondition, and therefore forcing the recalcitrant individual to comply with these laws is indeed tantamount to forcing him to be free. There is nothing paradoxical in Rousseau saying of such a person, ‘on le forcera d’être libre’, since the notion of freedom as non-domination requires nothing less, as Rousseau himself immediately explained: Car telle est la condition qui donnant chaque citoyen à la Patrie le garantit de toute dépendance personnelle. (Rousseau 1964:1.7) [For such is the condition that, giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence,] Any sense of paradox is due to confusing the absence of domination with the absence of interference. Nor is there anything alarming in the notion that one may have to compel people to be free, so long as it is clearly understood that the sense of freedom at issue is freedom from the arbitrary will of others, and that such compulsion does abridge a person’s freedom in another and no less real sense, namely by interfering with his ability to do as he pleases. Once we recognise, as I believe Pettit does not, that the broad idea of freedom is in itself pluralistic, harbouring a number of different values, we should be able to accept without misgiving that obedience to the law is in itself one form of freedom, if not the only one. Why is it that the idea of freedom harbours this sort of complexity? That is a large and difficult question that takes us beyond our present concerns. But the answer, I suspect, lies in the fact that we cannot make sense of the value of freedom except by reference to other human goods and that more than one good can prove relevant. We begin with a vague notion of freedom as the absence of constraint. Yet not every structuring of our activities can count as a constraint, if the notion is to have any discernible content; some must be regarded as preconditions of freedom. The only way to draw such a distinction, however, is by appealing to other things we value. Thus, to the extent that we see the satisfaction of desire as a good, all interference on the part of others can seem a constraint. But if we attend to the good that consists in being able to look others in the eye as our equals, then a system of just laws will appear, not as a constraint, but as the very basis of our freedom. Indeed, toward the end of this paper I will have more to say about the moral principles that serve to shape the neo-republican idea of freedom as non-domination. Republican vs Liberal There is another matter of equal theoretical consequence on which I believe that the contemporary neo-Roman thinkers—I mean Pettit, Skinner, and Viroli—go astray. It is the opposition that they all set up between their republican

92 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

conception of freedom and the modern liberal tradition. In their view, liberal thinkers have uniformly adhered to the principle that freedom means noninterference. ‘Liberalism’, so Pettit writes, has been associated over the two hundred years of its development, and in most of its influential varieties, with the negative conception of freedom as the absence of interference, and with the assumption that there is nothing inherently oppressive about some people having dominating power over others, provided they do not exercise that power and are not likely to exercise it. (Pettit 1999: 8–9)10 When liberals have wanted to criticise relations of domination, such as poverty or job insecurity, social conditions in which no interference may actually take place, they have therefore had to fall back, he says, on other values such as equality or the satisfaction of basic needs. The republican conception of freedom, by contrast, is held to be of sufficient substance that it can serve all by itself as the basis of a cogent ideal of social justice. It represents, in his view, ‘the supreme political value’ (Pettit 1999: 80–81). In sum, Pettit presents his republicanism as a fundamental alternative to the liberal understanding of political life. Skinner too likes to play off the republican doctrine of freedom as nondomination against an entity called ‘liberalism’ and identified with the view of freedom as simply the absence of interference (Skinner 1998:x, 113). And though Viroli begins his own account by declaring his opposition to ‘the conventional view...that republicanism is an alternative to liberalism’, he turns out to mean merely that liberalism, once again equated with the notion of freedom as non-interference, represents an ‘impoverished’ version of republican thought (Viroli 2002:6, 10, 43, 61). All three writers agree therefore that on the central question of freedom republican and liberal thought stand dramatically opposed. Despite their unanimity, I find this pattern of argument importantly mistaken for two distinct reasons. Here as elsewhere, Pettit shows himself to be the most systematic thinker in the group, and thus I shall explain my dissatisfaction by reference to his account. First of all, it is not right to suppose that the liberal tradition displays a monolithic allegiance to the notion of freedom as noninterference. The evidence which Pettit adduces to defend this interpretive thesis is partial and misleading. But in addition, the exposition which he goes on to give of his own republican theory does not really make of non-domination the supreme political value, and the character of this failure is telling. For he finds himself obliged to appeal to recognisably liberal principles in order to define the precise content of his republican conception of freedom. In the end, Pettit belongs to the very liberal tradition that he imagines he has transcended. I shall begin with the first point, reserving a discussion of the second to the next section.

REPUBLICANISM 93

It is indisputable that some thinkers do fit the picture which Pettit draws of the liberal point of view. Isaiah Berlin is a case in point. Distinguishing two grand conceptions of freedom, the absence of interference and autonomy, Berlin held that democratic self-government is a good only so far as it remains subordinate to a respect for individual rights. For this reason, liberalism tended to signify for him a political vision whose fundamental commitment is to the negative conception of freedom as non-interference. Nonetheless, the fact that this conception found its first detailed exposition in Hobbes’ writings ought to give us pause. The Hobbesian theory of the state scarcely looks like a liberal philosophy. Naturally, one might reply that Hobbes, while no liberal himself, furnished some tools—among them an idea of freedom—which later thinkers were able to exploit in constructing a model of the open society that can properly be called ‘liberal’. And indeed, freedom understood as the absence of interference was later taken up by Bentham, and it went on to inspire an important current of liberal thought. In the nineteenth century, its most eminent representative was John Stuart Mill, who argued that ‘the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way’ and who conceived of law, which like ‘all restraint, qua restraint, is an evil’, as a necessary limit on individual freedom so that ‘we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs’ (Mill 1991: ch.I, para.13, and ch.V, para.4). Obviously, it has had its followers in the twentieth century as well. But the question is whether liberalism as a whole coincides with this line of thought. One signal difficulty is that John Locke, incontestably a founding father of the liberal tradition, went out of his way in his political writings not to equate freedom with the absence of law. Distinguishing sharply between ‘liberty’ and ‘license’, ‘Although this [state of nature] be a state of Liberty, yet it is not a state of License… The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it’ (Locke 1965: Second Treatise, para.6), Locke insisted on the role played by law in the very constitution of freedom. Such a view is, as we have seen, a corollary of the republican concern with non-domination. And Locke’s asseverations in para.57 of the Second Treatise of Government could not have been bettered by any avowedly republican theorist: Law in its true notion is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest… The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom… Where there is no law, there is no freedom. Pettit deals with this problem by placing Locke among the republicans (Pettit 1999:40 and 1998:84–5). But that is a desperate remedy. Surely something is amiss in a definition of liberalism which accommodates Hobbes, but excludes Locke. The way out of this impasse is obvious, and it consists in admitting that the liberal tradition is not all of a piece. On the one hand, an identification of

94 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

freedom with the absence of interference has often been at work, perhaps most explicitly in utilitarian thought. (In this as in other regards, Bentham and John Austin were close students of Hobbes). But on the other, a great many thinkers whom it would be hard to classify as anything other than ‘liberal’ have rejected an essential opposition between freedom and law. In their eyes freedom seems therefore to have meant something very much like the absence of domination. Let us take as another example Benjamin Constant and his famous evocation of ‘the liberty of the moderns’. Pettit follows Berlin in regarding Constant as an illustrious advocate of the fundamental value of non-interference (Pettit 1999:18, 27, 50; Berlin 1969:xlvi, 124). But how did Constant himself portray modern liberty? Here is what he said: C’est le droit de n’être soumis qu’aux lois, de ne pouvoir ni être arrêté, ni détenu, ni mis à mort, ni maltraité d’aucune manière, par l’effet de la volonté arbitraire d’un ou de plusieurs individus. [It is the right to be subject only to the laws, such that one cannot be arrested, detained, executed, or mistreated in any way by virtue of the arbitrary will of one or more individuals.] (Constant 1980: 494–5, emphasis added)11 Freedom thus defined certainly differs from the collective exercise of sovereignty, that is, from the liberty of the Ancients in Constant’s terminology. But does it therefore amount to the freedom of non-interference? I have underlined the phrases indicating that for Constant ‘modern liberty’ consists in being subject to the law and not to the arbitrary will of another, and that its opposite is not merely actual interference in the harmful ways mentioned, but also the possibility of such mistreatment. The passage seems so clear an expression of the republican idea of freedom as the absence of domination that one might think it had been taken from the pages of Pettit’s own book. Naturally, we cannot be sure of Constant’s intention, since he did not differentiate between the two negative conceptions of freedom—absence of interference, absence of domination—and therefore never formally rejected the one in favour of the other. But precisely in this respect Pettit’s true achievement comes into view. He is the first to have analysed in a systematic way the difference between these two conceptions. His work has put us in a position to appreciate some of the crucial obscurities and disagreements surrounding the notion of freedom within the liberal tradition itself. Not only ought we to recognise, as I have suggested, the existence of two quite distinct lines of thought about freedom within that tradition, one distinctive of utilitarianism, the other attuned to the unity of freedom and law, but we should also expect that single thinkers may sometimes be drawn in the one direction and sometimes in the other. A good example is Locke himself. Though in his political writings he readily declared (like a good republican) that ‘freedom is not a liberty for every man to do what he lists’, he seconded the Hobbesian definition in the Essay

REPUBLICANISM 95

concerning Human Understanding: ‘freedom [consists] in our being able to act or not to act, according as we shall choose or will’ (Locke 1965: Second Treatise, para.57 and 1975:II.xxi.27). Having grasped therefore the distinctive concerns that underlie the republican ideal of not living at the mercy of another’s will, we should be able now to devote ourselves to a more careful articulation of liberal principles. Unfortunately, however, this is not the spirit in which Pettit has presented his republican theory of government. Instead, he has chosen to set up a grand opposition between liberal and republican thought. Understanding is not thereby advanced. Consider as a final example Pettit’s attempt to draw John Rawls too within the maw of his critique of liberalism. Rawls’ idea of the ‘priority of liberty’, the principle that ‘liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty’ (Rawls 1971: 244, 302), serves as Pettit’s chief evidence for placing him among those who hold that we are free to the extent that we escape interference from others (Pettit 1999:50). On Pettit’s telling, that principle expresses the characteristic view of Hobbes and Bentham, for whom law, even when just, constitutes a restriction of freedom to be accepted only because its absence would entail an even greater loss of freedom. This interpretation misses, however, the real meaning of Rawls’s principle. The import of that principle is to require that liberty (or more exactly, the scheme of equal basic liberties) never be compromised in order to promote some other value such as a fairer organisation of the economic conditions in society. Rawls invoked the ‘priority of liberty’ precisely with the aim of underscoring the subordinate importance to be assigned to his second main principle of justice, the difference principle, whose domain includes the distribution of income and wealth. Consequently, this position resembles that of Pettit himself when, declaring that freedom is the supreme political value, he argues that existing relations of domination should be tolerated only if they happen to constitute the best means for promoting non-domination overall (Pettit 1999:102). Pettit’s argument for aligning Rawls with the Hobbesian theory of freedom is unpersuasive. That does not mean, of course, that we should abandon the idea of figuring out whether Rawls conceived of liberty as the absence of interference or as the absence of domination. Nonetheless, I believe not only that there emerges no clear-cut answer to this question, but also that we should not be surprised to come up with none. Only as a result of Pettit’s own work are we in a position to formulate precisely the distinction between these two conceptions and to grasp their different implications. One might well expect that Rawls sometimes leaned toward the one, and sometimes toward the other. In fact, just this fluctuation is what we find when looking at Rawls’ writings in the light of our preceding remarks. His general definition of liberty undeniably speaks the language of non-interference:

96 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

This or that person (or persons) is free (or not free) from this or that constraint (or set of constraints) to do (or not to do) so and so… Persons are at liberty to do something when they are free from certain constraints either to do it or not to do it and when their doing it or not doing it is protected from interference by other persons (Rawls 1971:202). Yet many of the things that Rawls went on to say about political liberty show an affinity with the republican conviction that freedom consists in the absence of domination. The freedom which he made the object of his first principle of justice counts as a value only to the extent that it embodies an equal freedom for all, a scheme of basic liberties which each person enjoys compatibly with a similar scheme for everyone else. Why regard equality as essential to freedom? Were non-interference the only concern, then citizens ought not to worry about some people having a more extensive set of basic liberties than theirs, provided that they themselves are able to pursue unobstructed their individual purposes. If equal liberty forms the paramount principle, the point must be that people should be free, not only from undue interference by others, but also from the unfair influence or domination of others, when such fundamental matters as religious conscience, association, and political voice are at stake.12 Another reason for thinking that Rawls did not really equate freedom with the absence of obstacles is his evident reluctance to regard law as in itself an abridgement of liberty. ‘Whether men are free,’ he wrote, ‘is determined by the rights and duties established by the major institutions of society. Liberty is a certain pattern of social forms’ (Rawls 1971:63).13 Note that in this statement the fundamental laws of society are described as determining whether citizens are free at all. Law is very far from appearing as a constraint on freedom designed to prevent a still greater loss of liberty. No devotee of the Hobbesian conception of freedom could have penned those words. But again, my aim is not to suggest that in his heart of hearts Rawls adhered to the republican conception. A well-defined distinction between the two views of freedom was not available, when he wrote A Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism. Nothing impelled him to take a stand one way or the other. Here then lies Pettit’s real contribution. His work forces us to be more explicit than before about what we mean when we say that freedom is ‘freedom from’. What we should not do, however, is to seek in the republican ideal of freedom the makings of a non-liberal theory of political association. Pettit himself imagines that he stands outside the liberal framework. In reality he does not, and this will become clear as we examine more closely the way he proposes to understand freedom as the absence of domination. Domination and Respect So far, indeed, little has been said about the nature of domination itself, the concept which occupies so central a place in the neo-republican thought of Pettit,

REPUBLICANISM 97

Skinner, and Viroli. Pettit holds, as I have indicated, that we are free from domination to the extent that we do not find ourselves subject to the arbitrary will of others. What, however, does this proposition mean exactly? Pettit’s analysis of domination distinguishes three components (Pettit 1999: 52). An individual A is dominated by another (individual or group of individuals) B to the extent that (i) B has the capacity to interfere, (ii) on an arbitrary basis, and (iii) in certain choices that A is in a position to make. The first condition involves one important difficulty, which I shall discuss briefly, before turning to a close examination of condition (ii). For it is this second condition that must form our main focus. Clarifying what counts as an ‘arbitrary’ basis of interference will bring into view the essential relation between republican freedom and liberal principles. First, however, what can it mean to say, in accord with condition (i), that in dominating another a person has a capacity to interfere arbitrarily? For the time being, we may understand by ‘arbitrary’ interference the sort which a system of just laws is intended to prevent. And broadly speaking, we may say that people have the capacity in question when they are able to interfere, when they have the means at their disposal to obstruct the possibilities of others, even should they choose not in fact to intervene. The puzzle, however, is whether such a capacity is really eliminated by a system of just laws, as on Pettit’s analysis it must be, if domination itself is to cease. Do such laws actually do away with people’s ability to interfere at will, or do they rather make it more costly for them to do so, in virtue of the sanctions involved?14 In many cases the law can do no more than the latter, namely, deter. Sometimes offenders can be stopped in the act, and sometimes the law can bring a situation back to the status quo ante, by restitution or compensation. But only rarely can the law undertake to deprive people of their ability to interfere arbitrarily in the first place—as antimonopoly legislation does by taking away resources or as the legal protection of unions does by helping to equalise bargaining power. Pettit’s condition (i) needs therefore to be modified, if just laws are to serve as a general remedy against domination, even in cases where the capacity to interfere remains unchanged. At this point, it is useful to explain more carefully than before why good intentions are no substitute for just laws. Why is there not similarly an absence of domination when those in a position to interfere at will in the lives of others would never think of doing so because they are kindly and well-disposed? The reason cannot be that the chances of their nonetheless deciding to interfere are greater than the likelihood that they might do so, were the deterrent force of the law in place. In some cases, the difference in the odds may be insignificant. The explanation lies in what a system of just laws represents, in contrast to individual

98 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

cases of goodwill—namely, a public commitment which all can acknowledge, and which ideally all do, to hold in check their ability to interfere arbitrarily with others. We do not cease to live at the mercy of the powerful, be the chances of their obstructing our choices ever so low, if we rely solely on their virtue. For in that case it is only by their leave that we live unimpeded. We need to take our fate out of the hands of individual persons and give our immunity to interference an impersonal or collective basis. Only if the law guarantees our status as free and equal citizens does personal dependence come to an end, so that we can look one another in the eye. Only then are we free to pursue our own goals without worrying that we must win or keep the goodwill of the powerful. In this light, condition (i) in the definition of domination should be amended to read, let us say: ‘B has the publicly unchecked capacity to interfere’. But I also wish to underscore the point that a society without domination is one in which citizens regard themselves as standing in a public relation of fundamental equality with one another, a relation which they can all jointly acknowledge. This result will prove important again, as we explore the meaning of condition (ii) in Pettit’s definition, and to this topic I now turn. The state has the capacity to interfere in the affairs of its citizens. But provided that the basis of its interference is not arbitrary, it does not count—so the republican believes—as exercising a power of domination. How then ought the key term ‘arbitrary’ to be defined? Pettit’s answer is that the basis for possible interference is not arbitrary if it leads to interference aimed at ‘tracking’ or promoting the interests, or more exactly the politically relevant, the common and collectively actionable interests, of the individuals who are its object (Pettit 1999:55, 287). For instance (this is Pettit’s example), it is in the common interest that each citizen pay his taxes, so that even if I do not want to pay my own, the coercion that the government may then employ to force my payment does not constitute an arbitrary interference. Yet how should the common interests of the citizens be ascertained? Is it a matter of the interests which the citizens themselves can be taken to avow? Or is it a matter instead of their ‘real’ interests, of which they may have only an imperfect grasp? Pettit embraces the first alternative. Determining the interests which state power can pursue on a non-arbitrary basis is a question which only the political deliberation of the citizens themselves can ultimately decide.15 This position is undeniably attractive. But it gives rise in turn to a further question, namely, what are the principles which ought to govern this collective deliberation? In the absence of both institutional and normative structures already in place, debate will lead to no result, or the outcome will have no claim to being fair and just. This point is not lost on Pettit himself, who proceeds to lay down two conditions which political deliberation, as it determines the interests deserving legal protection, ought to satisfy (Pettit 1999:131ff.). First of all, citizens should rely solely on conceptual distinctions and forms of inference which no one in the community has a serious reason to reject. And second, the fundamental notions

REPUBLICANISM 99

on which they do rely must nonetheless be substantial enough to permit an adequate articulation of their various grievances and goals. Pettit argues that the value of non-domination fulfils these conditions far better than does the understanding of freedom as the absence of interference. The latter, he declares, expresses well the concerns of entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to curtail government intervention, but it does not resonate so well with workers, for example, whose lives are marked by economic insecurity and who stand to gain by state regulations. That may be true. Yet several crucial aspects of his argument demand comment. As Pettit admits, the two conditions he places upon political deliberation have a normative content. What then is the underlying value they express? The requirement that citizens and legislators make their legally-binding decisions without appeal to convictions which their fellow citizens have good reason to reject embodies in fact a basic kind of respect for the individual. If, as Pettit claims (Pettit 1999:187ff.), just laws are based, not upon the bargaining power of various interests, but upon arguments that in principle can meet with the assent of each citizen’s reason, then persons are being viewed as something more than simply means to an ulterior end. The good involved in their obedience to the law has to amount to more than whatever may be the benefits (notably, the sense of security) which their compliance affords everyone else. They are being seen as ends in themselves, in the sense that the exercise of their reason counts—in this context at least—as having an intrinsic value, which the terms of political life ought to acknowledge. This fundamental principle of respect for persons turns out therefore to constitute the deepest stratum in Pettit’s republican theory. It guides the determination of the interests which non-arbitrary, that is, just laws ought to promote. And if such interests form part of the definition of what is to count as the absence of domination, then Pettit is hardly right to assert that the republican notion of freedom can serve as the supreme political value. We are not in a position to figure out whether domination is at hand, either in society at large or in the operations of the state, unless we rely upon the relevant notion of respect for persons. But there is more. For what does this norm of respect embody if not the cardinal principle of liberalism, at least as one important strand of the liberal tradition has conceived it? Respect requires, as we have seen, that the fundamental terms of political life be such as to meet with the reasonable agreement of all who are to be bound by them. And that requirement is precisely what Rawls, for example, has termed the ‘liberal principle of political legitimacy’ (Rawls 1996:137, 217. See also Larmore 1996: ch.VI). It is from this principle that there derives the sort of neutrality which Rawls, in company with many other liberal thinkers, has held that the state must practice with regard to those comprehensive conceptions of the good life which remain an object of reasonable disagreement. Yet Pettit, too, effectively accords this conception of respect a fundamental importance, since only by implicitly relying on it can he

100 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

define what he wants to understand by non-domination. This conception along with the state neutrality it entails shape the first of the two conditions to which deliberation about the common interest is supposed to conform. Pettit’s republican model is therefore not really in conflict with the essentials of liberalism, even though it does stand opposed, that is clear, to the Benthamite current which reduces freedom to the absence of interference. No doubt there exist other ways to define non-domination than the path adopted by Pettit himself. Some ways of conceiving the idea of not being subject to the arbitrary will of another might very well deny that an individual’s reason has any real bearing on the issue. We are truly free —so some may suppose— and no longer live at another’s leave, when we place ourselves under the authority of God or the Nation, whatever our own reason may say. One might therefore be ‘republican’ without being liberal. But that is manifestly not the kind of republicanism which Pettit envisions. Again and again in his book, Pettit declares that contestability counts for more than consent in his ideal republic (Pettit 1999:ix, 63, 184ff.). Only if citizens stand ready to challenge the government’s decisions, can they make sure that it will not slip into the arbitrary exercise of its powers, advancing its own particular interests and catering to the concerns of the powerful, as it can easily do. There is good sense in this observation, and certainly actual consent, shaped as it generally is by a motley of pressures, ought to be an object of suspicion. But Pettit goes too far when he asserts that ‘once a contestatory democracy is in place, then of course everything is up for grabs’ (Pettit 1999:201). Not everything can be subject to revision, if contestation is to mean anything like what Pettit himself has in mind. Not the principle of respect for persons which serves to define the very idea of arbitrary power, animates therefore the appropriate spirit of contestation, and gives Pettit’s ideal republic a recognisably liberal character. I mentioned earlier that a society without domination has to rely on a shared understanding among its citizens that they are committed to bringing about such a society. Only then can a system of just laws, as the public expression of that commitment, eliminate all relations of personal dependence. Now it belongs to the very heart of the liberal norm of respect for persons that our political life should rest on principles which all can jointly acknowledge. If our political principles are ones we affirm only because all of us together have reason to endorse them, they constitute a common point of view that we share with others precisely on the understanding that it is sharable. In this sense, the relation in which we stand to one another as citizens is an essentially ‘public’ relation.16 And thus in this regard too, Pettit’s republican concerns become fully intelligible only within a liberal framework. This brings me to a final point. If any value has a claim to constituting the foundation of the sort of political order which republican and liberal thinkers can be at one in seeking, it is not freedom in any of its senses, but rather the idea of respect for persons. Powerful currents in our culture push against a recognition

REPUBLICANISM 101

of this fact. Freedom, in all its various meanings, is continually invoked as the framework in which our moral thinking should take place. Individuals can really be bound, it is said, only by principles of conduct which under suitably ideal conditions they would give themselves. So too it is commonly said that a democratic people is one in which free and equal citizens in their collective capacity themselves determine the principles by which they will live. These selfdescriptions do not go deep enough, however. They blind us to the true structure of our moral world. As I noted above, the freedom we prize is always a freedom shaped by other moral principles, principles whose authority we do not so much establish ourselves as acknowledge. Political freedom in particular, if it is to have a shape which we today would welcome, will take its bearings from the obligation to respect one another as persons.17 NOTES 1. For his most recent study, see Skinner 1998. 2. His most recent work is Viroli 2002. 3. See also Leviathan, pt I, ch.14, para.2, where Hobbes wrote that ‘by LIBERTY is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments’. For Bentham’s understanding of freedom, see Bentham 1970:253: ‘Liberty then is of two or even more sorts, according to the number of quarters from whence coercion, which it is the absence of, may come’. See also his letter to John Lind of 1776, quoted by Pettit 1999:44. There Bentham wrote of his discovery that ‘the idea of liberty imported nothing in it that was positive: that it was merely a negative one: and that accordingly I defined it “the absence of restraint”’. 4. See also the ‘lntroduction’ in the same volume, pp. xxxviii–ix. John Gray puts this point well by remarking that for Berlin, in contrast to Hobbes and Bentham, negative freedom consists, not in the unobstructed pursuit of one’s desire, but in ‘choice among …options that is unimpeded by others’. Behind Berlin’s conception stands the idea of ‘self-creation through choice-making’. See Gray 1996:15–21. 5. Berlin 1969:129: ‘lt is perfectly conceivable that a liberal-minded despot would allow his subjects a large measure of personal freedom.’ 6. In the second of these passages, Hobbes is talking in fact about those ‘other liberties’ of the subject besides that by which he may refuse without injustice to obey any explicit command of the Sovereign not to defend his own person. This latter freedom, he maintains, is the one natural freedom which can never be surrendered upon entering civil society. 7. Pettit introduced the distinction between neo-Athenian and neo-Roman versions of the republican tradition in Pettit 1998:73–96. 8. See also pp. 40–41: ‘The republican vocabulary…contended that homo, the animale politicum, was so constituted that his nature was completed only in a vita activa practiced in a vivere civile’. 9. Skinner takes this view as well (1998:74, n.38), as does Viroli 2002:11, 42, 49. 10. Pettit continues to hold to this conception of liberalism in his 1999 postscript to the book, p.298.

102 LIBERAL AND REPUBLICAN CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM

11. I have amended Biancamaria Fontana’s translation in Fontana 1988:310, because it fails unfortunately to preserve the key terms which I have underscored. 12. Pettit himself (1999:111) notes that the value of equal liberty makes most sense when freedom is understood as absence of domination. 13. See also p.202, right in the middle of the passage I cited earlier as showing his allegiance to the idea of freedom as non-interference: ‘Liberty is a certain structure of institutions, a certain system of public rules defining rights and duties’. In the later postscript to Republicanism (Pettit 1999:301, n.), Pettit admits that passages like this suggest an understanding of freedom as non-domination. Still, he discounts them as not shaping Rawls’ theory ‘in any distinctive way’. I indicated in the previous note why that verdict is unfair: Rawls’ ‘equal liberty’ principle, which plays so central a role in his theory, makes most sense when liberty is understood as the absence of domination. 14. This important objection is raised by Gerald Gaus (2003:69–73) in Gaus 2003:59– 91. The following three paragraphs attempt to meet Gaus’s arguments. 15. Pettit 1999:56, 63. Choosing the first alternative entails, as he says in the postscript (p.288), ranking ‘process’ over ‘policy’. 16. For more details, see Larmore 2003. 17. For further reflections along these lines, see Larmore 1999 and 2000.

REFERENCES Bentham, J. 1970. Of Laws in General. Ed. H.L.A.Hart. London: Athlone. Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Constant, B. 1980. ‘De la liberté des Anciens comparée à celle des Modernes’, in De la liberté chez les Modernes. Paris: Pluriel. (Also translated by Biancamaria Fontana in Fontana 1988). Fontana, B., ed. 1988. Constant: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freeman, S., ed. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaus, G. 2003. ‘Backwards into the future: neorepublicanism as a postsocialist critique of market society’. Social Philosophy & Policy, 20/1, 59–91. Gray, J. 1996. Isaiah Berlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hobbes, T. 1968. Leviathan. Ed. C.B.MacPherson, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Houston, A.C. 1991. Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Larmore, C. 1996. The Morals of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999. ‘The moral basis of political liberalism’. Journal of Philosophy, 96/12, 599–625. 2000. ‘Le ‘nous’ moral que nous sommes’. Comprendre, vol.I, Paris: PUF, 219–34. 2003. ‘Public Reason’. Freeman 2003:368–93. Locke, J. 1965. Two Treatises of Government. Ed. P.Laslett, New York: Mentor. 1975. An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Ed. P.H.Nidditch, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

REPUBLICANISM 103

Machiavelli, N. 1965. The Complete Works. Trans. A.Gilbert, 3 vols., Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mill, J.S. 1991. On Liberty. Ed. J.Gray and G.W.Smith,London and New York: Routledge. Pettit, P. 1998. ‘Reworking Sandel’s republicanism’, Journal of Philosophy, 95/2, 73–96. 1999. Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government, 2nd ed. with postscript. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 2002. ‘Keeping republican freedom simple’, Political Theory, 30/3, 339–56. Pocock, J.G.A. 1985a. Virtue, Commerce, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985b. ‘Virtues, Rights, and Manners’. Pocock 1985a: ch.2. Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Rousseau, J.-J. 1964. Du contrat social, in Oeuvres completes. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Sidney, A. 1996. Discourses concerning Government (first published 1698). Ed. Thomas G. West, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Skinner, Q. 1998. Liberty Before Liberalism.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Viroli, M. 2002.Republicanism (ital. original 1999). Trans. A.Shugaar, New York: Hill and Wang.

8 Non-Domination as a Moral Ideal CHRISTIAN NADEAU

The aim of this essay is to determine the type of moral argument that most adequately serves as a normative foundation for republicanism, or, more precisely, for the conception of freedom as non-domination. In other words, I want to determine if, as suggested by Philip Pettit, consequentialist ethics allows us to provide a better account of republican liberty (or liberty as non-domination) than other possible theoretical approaches. In order to examine this problem, we should avoid reducing the principle of non-domination to a purely moral ideal that can be analyzed independently of the political sphere. But though the ideal of non-domination is a political ideal, it will be examined here from the heuristic approach which, in ethical debates, is traditionally associated with consequentialism. What is under scrutiny here is whether or not a consequentialist teleological orientation is the most appropriate approach for understanding what it means for a society to adopt the ideal of non-domination. I will first present the thesis of liberty as non-domination as it appears in the work of Philip Pettit and JeanFabien Spitz. I will then point out the shortcomings of three different ways in which consequentialist ethics might embody non-domination. This will allow me to expose the inevitable problems that arise for any attempt to conceptualise nondomination from a consequentialist perspective. In the last section, I will argue that, despite these criticisms, consequentialism remains a relevant heuristic for coming to terms with the problem of non-domination. Domination cannot be identified as easily as arbitrary interference. Interference presupposes an actual relationship—one is tempted to say a tangible one—between two agents. This is not the case of domination. Unlike interference, the problem with domination is that it is easily overlooked, since it lacks material evidence. But these epistemic problems do not remove its burden. It is precisely this line between interference and domination that renders an analogy between the institutional mechanisms put in place to prevent domination and those intended to curb arbitrary inference between citizens in a just society. But what exactly is this line between interference and domination?

REPUBLICANISM 105

Republican Liberty Since Isaiah Berlin’s famous article, it is common to distinguish between negative and positive conceptions of liberty (Berlin 1958). Since this distinction is well known, I will not dwell upon it. Positive liberty is usually seen as a civic ideal where citizens fulfil their freedom through active participation in political institutions. Participation is seen as the guardian of liberty, since it is the medium by which the citizens affirms his autonomy: as a citizen, he is his own master. Another way of looking at positive liberty is to suppose that it has a distinctive substantive content. According to this conception, if one decides not to match one’s choices to this content, one is ipso facto not free. This content is established by a given political community’s vision of citizenship. The citizen’s autonomy is granted by his voluntary inclusion in the community: it is the citizen who is autonomous, not the individual. It is difficult to determine with precision what positive liberty is, since it appears to relate more to the means employed to achieve freedom rather than any specific conception. For example, one cannot say that civic virtues, participation, etc., constitute liberty. These notions are better understood as means towards its fulfilment. Nonetheless, what will be said about the means used to achieve freedom does betray a certain vision of what liberty might be. It is hard to imagine an ‘end’—liberty— being in contradiction with the means used to reach it. Indeed, if the equal participation of citizens in public life is necessary to achieve their freedom, one can hardly think of their liberty as not involving a principle of equality. The very principle of negative liberty, as opposed to positive liberty, implies that it cannot be intrinsically defined. But it is also clear that the means of achieving negative liberty must respect the idea that the content of liberty is left undefined. It is with an eye towards overcoming the dichotomy between negative liberty and positive liberty that the republican concept of political liberty was elaborated. About a decade ago, Philip Pettit proposed the concept of liberty as nondomination (Pettit 1993b:15–38; Pettit 1996: 576–604; Pettit 1997b. For an account of Pettit’s work, see Spitz 1995). This conception depicts the conditions under which an agent lives in presence of a multiplicity of other agents but is submitted to none (Pettit 1997b:84; Spitz 1995:217). By introducing this conception, Pettit did not wish to negate the theoretical value of the concept of negative liberty but sought to enrich its meaning. According to Pettit, the concept of negative liberty traditionally referred to the absence of arbitrary interference in the agent’s sphere of liberty. Being free means not having one’s will restricted in an arbitrary manner by something or someone. Against this conception of negative liberty, which he names ‘liberty as non-interference’, Pettit opposes the thesis where a free agent is one whose will is not dominated by another’s. This thesis he names ‘liberty as non-domination’. As opposed to the idea of ‘interference’, the idea of ‘domination’ supposes the exercise of a broad power by a specific agent—or an entity that can play the role of an agent—on another agent. ‘Broad power’ should be understood as a power

106 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

that goes beyond a given interference, one which subordinates the will of a specific agent to the will of another. However, the concept of domination is independent from the concept of interference, for it is possible for an agent to be submitted to the will of another agent without having the latter interfere in his sphere of liberty. Similarly, the concept of interference is independent of the concept of domination, since it is possible for an agent to interfere with another agent’s sphere of liberty without dominating him. Domination and interference are two distinct ‘ills’. For this reason, one must distinguish between their corresponding conceptions of liberty. The nature of this distinction is rooted in the fact that the reasons against interference are contingent, while the reasons for which against domination are not (Pettit 1997b:22–7). Let us examine this point in detail. Liberty as non-domination supposes not only that an agent’s sphere of liberty is free from arbitrary interference or meddling, but also that this liberty ought not be taken away. Liberty as non-interference allows for an agent to be ‘free’ even if his choices are dominated by the will of another agent. An agent is considered free as long as there is no tangible encroachment on his freedom. Undue influences or pressures emanating from another more dominant agent are not strong enough to be considered to interfere with freedom. In such cases, given that the agent is free to negate or oppose external pressures, his liberty is intruded upon in an indirect manner only. On the contrary, liberty as non-domination, being a negative conception of freedom, cannot represent a person as free as long as his choices are governed by the will of another agent. Of course, if the agent voluntarily submits to this domination, he remains free. But if this is not the case, we cannot claim that the agent is free merely on the grounds that there are no tangible proofs of interference. The number of choices that a given agent can make do not reflect the extent of his freedom, since certain choices could turn out to be determined by the will of another. Even if, in the final analysis, the choice an agent makes under someone else’s influence remains his choice, the concept of domination calls into to question the assumption that only direct interference with the will of an agent should be taken into account. Liberty as non-interference presuppose that we desire the broadest array of choices possible, even if these choices may be influenced by the will of another agent. If these choices are influenced by another agent’s will, but this agent use interference to impose his will, then we cannot claim that these choices are not free. Liberty as non-domination presupposes that we prefer choices that are not influenced by another’s arbitrary will, i.e. undominated choices. Thus it is not the array of possible choices that is attractive to the agents, but the certainty of the liberty which they carry with them (Pettit 1997b:25). This liberty presupposes the existence of a Rule of Law. In republican theory, the impediment laws and institutions embody against dominating appetites and servile behaviour is not seen as a breach of liberty. This peculiar conception betrays an over-attachment to the principle of liberty as non-interference. Law and institutional norms, in republican theory, offer

REPUBLICANISM 107

political guarantees to individual freedom, but these guarantees are not directly granted by the institutions. Instead, they aim to secure them indirectly, to the degree where these institutions prevent, as far as possible, that the agents’ liberty from becoming limited on an arbitrary basis. Freedom is thus defined here in terms of its guarantees, given by existing laws and intervening institutions. The existence of laws and institutions cannot in any way diminish liberties that, in their absence, would not exist, or that would at best exist only contingently. It is precisely this contingent trait that breeds domination by allowing uncertainty to creep in (Pettit 1997b:35–41, 1993a:169). Without these guarantees, an agent can easily lose his freedom, insofar as his freedom depends upon the will of another. The point is not to replace the arbitrary power that all individuals exert upon one another by a similar power embodied in laws or institutions, but by an entirely different kind. The latter kind of power fits into a republican framework only if it is devoid of any dominating tendencies. Institutional interference is not only possible but welcome as long as it does not itself represent a new form of domination. The problem that will be examined in the next section is the following: How can consequentialist ethics bring us to a better understanding of the moral stakes linked to the concept of liberty as non-domination? By trying to answer this question, we will see that the consequentialist approach also reveals the difficulties encountered by a political morality that aims to maximise liberty as non-domination. The Consequentialist Approach Consequentialist theories are based on the following principle: agents’ behaviour must aim for the best consequences. It is in this sense that one can speak of consequentialism as being ‘teleological’. When the agent aims for the best consequences, these consequences are the moral ends of his actions. Consequentialism can be seen as a teleological theory, but it must not be associated with ‘attractive’ moral conceptions. Indeed, the ultimate end of the action is not the good itself. This relationship between action and the good characterises ‘attractive’ theories, where virtue ethics is a paradigmatic example. In the case of virtue ethics, the good is not seen as an end but as a value (Pettit 1997a:92ff.; Pettit 2000). To say of a thing that it is good means that we endow it with a positive value (that is, a value which accords with our values). If our moral choices are made in the context of social justice, this value must go beyond the particular values of each agent. Within consequentialism, it follows that the good aimed at cannot be conceived of as having an autonomous existence. It cannot be thought of as a moral model for the agent. In the theoretical framework of consequentialism, the good is constructed by the agent’s actions, meaning that it is the outcome of his action. What guides our actions is our intention to bring about this good, which, once realised, or during the course of its realisation, concretize our values. This is a

108 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

fundamental thesis that must be kept in mind throughout our examination of the political institutions of the republican model. However, before we get to this point we must further analyse the consequentialist principle. We have already established that consequentialism supposes that moral choices are made in relation to the goods that are sought. But these goods are not substantial entities with which the agent identifies. The point is not so much to reach something as to construct it. We may or may not possess a clear idea of what we seek to produce, but, by producing it, we should aim to produce just consequences. This is why most partisans of consequentialism see it as a moral conception where justice establishes the good, rather than the other way around. Thus justice is defined by the following principle: every choice must be determined in terms of the best consequences that it can lead to. What produces the best consequences is justice. In other words, the consequences that I see as being good are just, insofar as they seem to represent the best possible outcome. Inversely, the consequences that that are bad or less good than the ones that could have been brought forth by different courses of action, are unjust. If the principal advocates of consequentialism have been keen on distinguishing their theory separate from utilitarianism, avoiding reducing the consequentialist principle to the utilitarian one, it is because the positive value associated with the calculus of the best consequences is not associated with any particular notion of the ‘best consequences’. By leaving this question open, the positive idea, or the idea predicated of the attribute ‘best’ remains abstract, i.e. neutral. The consequentialist moral claim, according to which we must act to bring about the best consequences, is not dependent on the subjective interpretation of the expression ‘best consequences’. Indeed, it is not necessary to suppose that the expression ‘best consequences’ means the ‘most useful’ outcome. There exists a plurality of ways of conceiving what the ‘best consequences’ are, depending on the diverse situations in which we ask this question. However, in all cases the manner in which we interpret the ‘best consequences’ must be guided by a principle of impartiality or of axiological neutrality. The ‘best consequences’ will truly be the best, if and only if they are not those of each individual but those of the society as a whole. Consequentialism and Republican Freedom Let us suppose that liberty as non-domination is the target or the ideal that must be reached by our political institutions. We must explore the multiple manners in which this ideal of non-domination can be reached. I will introduce three ways that to my mind seem exhaustive. First, I will introduce the ideal of the maximisation of goods, liberty as non-domination being one of them. Second, I will present the ideal of the maximisation of liberty as non-domination, here seen as an absolute (that is, not part of a bundle of goods, but as the only consequence that should be sought by our social actions). Finally, I will examine freedom as a

REPUBLICANISM 109

precondition for other goods—where freedom is conceived of as republican freedom. Before beginning we must underline the fact that the maximisation of liberty as non-domination cannot be conceived of as the enjoyment of perfect liberty. This is due to the fact that such an enjoyment presupposes the existence of a state where the agent could be perfectly free—in other words a state of liberty so complete that any further enjoyment of freedom would be unthinkable. If such a thing can be conceived of in terms of a conception of liberty as non-interference —a perfectly free agent is one whose liberty is not interfered with—it is hard to imagine it in a conception of liberty as non-domination. Indeed, without interference the range of liberty is unlimited. The maximisation of liberty would be equivalent to the total disappearance of all interference. According to this model, as long as no interference is committed in the sphere of liberty of the agents, they are free. However, the maximisation of freedom in the context of the republican conception of liberty as non-domination would suppose that all possible entanglements and infringements on the sphere of liberty are no longer possible. But if the absence of interference can easily be observed, it is a lot harder to prove the complete absence of domination. Unlike interference, domination is not an easily identifiable phenomenon. As mentioned above, interference, by definition, presupposes an effective relationship between two agents. This is not the case for domination. We can suppose that an agent X is dominated by agent Y without having Y encroaching in an effective manner with X’s sphere of liberty, indeed without X knowing that he is under Y’s domination. However, Y’s power over X is such that X is no longer acting in an autonomous, undominated manner. Since this domination is not effective it is impossible to label it or prevent it in an absolute way. To absolutely ban domination would require us to eliminate any possibility of an individual having arbitrary power over another. The problem is that as long as the manifestation of this power is not visible— in other words, as long as this power is not effective—it is hard to find a solution to the problem it poses. It is very difficult to counteract something that has no effective reality. Moreover, if the manifestation of this power was effective, then we would no longer be dealing with domination but with interference. Nevertheless, if it seems to be impossible to respond to domination, it is possible to prevent it. To respond to interference is to respond to an action that has already taken place or to an agent of which we have good reasons to believe will interfere with our sphere of liberty. To respond to domination is to prevent the rise of such a power by providing ourselves with the necessary resources to render attempted domination unsuccessful. Indeed, even if domination is, unlike interference, ineffectual, the dominating agent, like the interfering agent, is itself very much at hand. It would then suffice, to prevent domination in an absolute manner, to prevent any agent from acquiring the power necessary to exert arbitrary domination over another agent. But what could constitute a proof that this power is arbitrarily exercised over an agent, if not the tangibility of the interference? It seems that the

110 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

dominating and interfering agents are not as equal as we might think at first glance. These two agents cannot be conceived as individuals who share analogous characteristics. It is easy to show by simple factual inference that the interfering agent is at the source of the interference. The causal link of domination is much harder to follow, since it cannot be tracked through actual facts. If domination is not an effective relation between individuals, the reaction to the harm it causes will not be a reaction directed against wrongs that have in fact been committed, but instead will be guided by the possible harms it can bring about. By guarding ourselves against an arbitrary power, that is, by providing ourselves with the necessary resources and powers to avoid being a target of arbitrariness, we avoid domination. We are protected against it. Of course, one could claim that, as is the case with interference, one could trace the trail of domination by following the causal link that unites the dominating and dominated agents, limiting the latter’s choices. Through his arbitrary power, the dominating agent is capable of preventing another agent from making certain valid choices without actively interfering in his sphere of liberty. For instance, if agent A has the possibility of choosing between goods x, y, z and agent B can arbitrarily dissolve good z, then B robs A of a possible choice without it being possible for us to tell that he has interfered directly with A’s sphere of liberty (perhaps B’s intention wasn’t to effect A at all; perhaps B isn’t even aware that his action represents a risk for A). B’s action has not been one that prevents or blocks A from choosing z. He has merely taken z out of the bundle. B is, in such a scheme, a dominating agent if his choice is arbitrary (i.e. if no rule authorised him to do so). However, he is less obviously an interfering agent. There is also a clear causal link: we can prove that B causes z’s disappearance. Nonetheless (and this is where the originality of domination appears), it is not necessary for B to take z out of A’s bundle of choices to be able to speak of domination. The simple fact that B can do so is sufficient proof since A lives under the constant threat of not being able to enjoy z. Even if A was unaware of this threat, this does not weaken its existence. Thus, it is not necessary for the arbitrary dominating power to be intentionally directed against the dominated agent to conclude that domination exists. The agent is dominated because the arbitrary power of the dominating agent makes him vulnerable—and not only towards the dominating agent. The agent is dominated, meaning that he is no longer able to effectively defend himself against others or act according to his own will. He is at the mercy of the power of others. If this domination is complete then the agent is in a position very similar to that of a checkmated king in a chess game. Because we think domination in terms of strength or of the arbitrary power possessed by an individual over another, the way to prevent it is by weakening this arbitrary power or strength. Republican theory sees liberty as a work in progress. It does not take the state of non-domination for granted, for it does not see it as being given judicially.

REPUBLICANISM 111

Liberty is the product of a constant collective work, and this work is endless since if it did come to end, it would cease to exist. Indeed, liberty as nondomination cannot be perfectly achieved in principle, in a way that would make the quest for greater liberty redundant. This is because members of the community are not to be satisfied by mere legal warrants. In other words, liberty as non-domination can always be pursued further. If liberty as non-domination is a work in progress, it means that liberty has meaning only when it is constantly reactivated by citizens and institutions alike. This is a consequentialist principle, in the sense that liberty is not a norm that is honoured as though it was a sacred duty, but a principle promoted by the agents. I believe that the consequentialist approach is preferable for the simple reason that if liberty is seen as a sacred principle, its dutiful and uncritical application can lead to self-contradiction, i.e. to a breach of the conception of liberty as non-domination. Liberty as non-domination is a collective undertaking and a work in progress—namely, an active principle that can neither be completed nor brought to an end—so that respect for the principle of nondomination can never be conceived in absolute terms. Thus, to take an example from Pettit, in the same society, one agent can militate to ban a right-wing extremist organisation, because he aims to promote liberty. But if liberty is seen as an absolute principle, this same agent could stand against the means taken to ban the political activities of these right-wing extremists (Pettit 1997a:127). Also, it could be possible to respect my liberty as an absolute principle by refusing, for example, all forms of interference directed against my will. However, if I take part in a collective action which treats liberty as a social achievement, based at the same time on the institutions and on individuals’ desire to be free, I can see no drawback in the fact that my desires and aspirations would become conditional to imperatives that are more important for the maximisation of non-domination. I could see no drawbacks insofar, of course, as this self-imposed sacrifice doesn’t contradict the very reasons for which I submit myself to it—that this sacrifice doesn’t put me in a situation of dependence or vulnerability towards other agents. We must now see what the maximisation of liberty might mean. It is precisely on this ground that we can criticise the use of consequentialism as a moral strategy for non-domination. A Criticism of the Consequentialist Principle in the Context of Liberty as Non-Domination Maximising Liberty as Part of a Bundle of Goods Theoretically, the maximisation of liberty is achieved by political institutions. These institutions, through the use of civil laws and wealth redistribution, will

112 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

prevent the abuse of power. These actions will be correctly perceived as attempts to reduce domination and thus to increase liberty. Is this the only possible role for republican institutions? One could easily imagine a multiplicity of ends towards which these institutions strive. Of course, they will not all have liberty as their value. One could however imagine a cluster of primary goods that are not attached to liberty but can still be considered to be as important. For instance, health and other ends sought by these institutions are not necessarily linked to the project of non-domination. True, one can hardly imagine them being incompatible with that goal. Thus, civil authorities might pass laws that will facilitate access to health care. The purpose of this is to enable the maximum amount of people to have real access to these services and not only to have a right to them. The ultimate goal of the government of a given society is to insure a certain quality of life for the largest amount of people possible. One could say that this purpose is parallel to the goal of maximising liberty. However, one cannot say that the maximisation of liberty includes all the different aspects of health considered as a good. For instance, quick access to healthcare is not necessarily synonymous with a fair and equitable access. If the aim of government is to maximise the availability of goods— freedom being part of the bundle—then, in order to pursue this goal, it will have to spread its resources to cater to the promotion of liberty and for the other goods as well. How will this allocation take place? If all the goods could be associated with the general project of liberty as non-domination, then one could no longer see liberty as part of a bundle of goods, since it entails them all. However, we have already shown why this is not possible. Even when some goods are compatible with the principle of liberty as non-domination, certain aspects of these goods do not overlap with the principle of non-domination. Thus, a distribution of resources and means that allow us to obtain different goods necessarily takes place, which requires that the attention of the institutions will not be placed on liberty alone. In that case, either (a) liberty is pursued on the same level as the other goods or (b) it has a privileged status among those goods. Sadly, these two principles do not enable us to clarify what the maximisation of republican freedom might be. Liberty on Par with the Other Goods. One can imagine that all goods are equally promoted or pursued. In such a case, all goods will be identified as being of equal importance, ceteris paribus, and, for our ceteris paribus clause to hold, equal importance must be granted to the goods that further republican freedom and to those that do not. However, we can easily put aside all the goods that would be opposed to the principle of liberty as non-domination. A given society’s list of primary goods can hardly contain goods which are radically incompatible with non-domination. Even if it was possible to make such a list in a way that would insure the absence of goods opposed to non-domination, the fact remains that goods which are not opposed to non-domination do not necessarily further it. Liberty as a Dominant Good. We could also imagine liberty as having a special status within the total bundle of goods. The problem would then involve

REPUBLICANISM 113

justifying the necessary hierarchy that would insure the dominance of liberty. This would require a long analysis, but it is evident that it would be hard to justify the dominance of liberty a priori. Moreover, especially if the other goods are secondary, liberty is not part of them. The fact that it is now in a class apart means that the principle of maximisation applies to a single variable namely liberty. The primacy of liberty over the other goods will marginalise the other goods through the application of the principle of maximisation. Maximising Liberty Seen as an Absolute If liberty is seen, not as an element within a bundle of other goods, but as an absolute, it becomes a hierarchical principle that can tolerate other goods but that will marginalise them at the same time. The problem is that no apparent reason seems to justify the limitation of other goods for the sole benefit of liberty. One can easily imagine a certain number of goods that could be desired over and above liberty. For instance, one could imagine that the individuals of a given society will value security or material comfort above liberty. Except in the case where we would seek security precisely because of the conflict between the dominated and dominating—and where the moral value of liberty could be supplanted by a desire for compromise—it is entirely possible to reconcile the search for peace with the search for liberty. The root of our problem is the concept of maximisation. This concept cannot tolerate the idea of a plural definition of the good it seeks to maximise. The maximisation of a variable means that only this variable is taken into account. The pursuit of a good almost inevitably involves some other good being neglected, or pursued only to a limited degree. The effort to obtain good X, Y or Z means that none of these goods can be maximised. Even if it is possible to promote liberty while valuing a number of other goods, it would be impossible to speak of a maximisation of liberty if the attention or concern for the other goods is not significantly reduced or even eliminated. For liberty to be maximised it cannot be seen to be on an equal footing with the other goods. The mere fact that we desire these other goods threatens the paramount importance of liberty. However, if we examine liberty in the theoretical framework of negative liberty, even if we think about it in terms of non-domination instead of noninterference, then we will consider liberty from the point of view of what it is possible to do, and not as it manifests itself in concrete realisations. Now, if liberty is an absolute, liberty as an act will possess an intrinsic value, an absolute value, which doesn’t fit well with traditional consequentialist theses. Maximising Liberty as Pre-Requisite for the Other Goods The alternative view is to see liberty neither as one good among a bundle of other goods or as an absolute, but as an instrumental good. In this sense, the pursuit of liberty is not achieved at the expense of other goods, since these goods

114 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

can only be obtained through liberty. Nonetheless, if liberty is necessary for the attainment of these other goods, i.e. if liberty is a condition for obtaining these goods, then the only goods that can be desired are the ones that are compatible with the ideal of liberty as non-domination. Once again there is no reason that justifies the favourable treatment received by the goods compatible with the ideal of non-domination at the expense of all the other goods in the public and private realm. However, this last hypothesis should be examined in a different light. The Maximisation of Liberty as a Search for Warrants for Freedom Despite all the foregoing criticisms, it seems to me that the moral framework of consequentialism is the best and most adequate heuristic device to reach an understanding of non-domination. As we have claimed earlier, it is the nature of domination (as it cannot be materially detected, unlike interference) that puts such an onus on the neo-republican conception of liberty. If the ambiguity and murkiness of domination makes it harder than interference to detect, this same fleetingness must be taken into account when designing remedies against it. Thus, it is as hard to conceive non-domination as a quantifiable entity in the vein of interference. In a classical deontological framework, any kind of interference would be understood, at different levels, as an infringement on the right of a person to enjoy her liberty as she sees fit. In a consequentialist framework, certain types of interference could be permitted if and only if they enabled an increase in individual liberty. For instance, certain obligations toward the state could be compensated for through granting a broader sphere of liberty in exchange. If one considers the principle of domination from a deontological perspective, domination is, in principle, an offence against the right of a person to be totally free. If the nature of domination is as murky as we have been led to believe, it seems that the nature of its effects will be very hard to prove. One must remember that interference is an act whereas domination is a relation of power, so it appears that the vocabulary of rights is not best suited for combating domination. In other words, the vocabulary of rights is more successful when dealing with interferences, but fails to decipher the language of domination. Even if it is possible to explain a dominating relation in a causal manner, thereby showing that an action which puts one agent in a situation of vulnerability has taken place, it is still very hard to demonstrate that the dominating agent is the direct source or origin of the latter’s plight. For example, if I am part of a group of investors and wish to withdraw from it, perhaps I will succeed in steering clear of an excessively risky business, but I could also drive the other members of the group into bankruptcy. If my contribution was really much more important than theirs, it could possibly be a valid and rational choice for me to make. But if the other investors are not immunised, one way or another,

REPUBLICANISM 115

against the negative effects of my choice, then they will be in a situation of inferiority not only towards me, but towards other agents who could take advantage of this same vulnerability. The main difficulty is that the obligation of the state does not so much produce a good as such, e.g., non-domination, as it allows for the creation of a political and juridical situation where the liberty of individuals is shielded from the dangers of domination. The aim that is pursued is the creation of a situation where the freedom of individuals is ensured without the presence of a constant threat. This does not mean that the ideal of non-domination is imposed upon the individuals’ possible choices. The point is merely to ensure they have the possibility of living according to their own desires without having to make choices oriented by a fear of losing their freedom. Thus we cannot say that protecting a certain domain of the individuals’ freedom will bring about a lesser protection of another domain of their freedom. As soon as we have reason to believe that certain domains of liberty are threatened by an authority possessing the power to hamper the agents’ liberty, it is easy to conceive how state can intervene without causing the neglection of other spheres of liberty (Pettit 1997b: 104). Moreover, and most importantly, I do not wish to say that the power of institutions and the state is the only one capable of checking domination. Though their role is crucial, he manner in which individuals will learn to appreciate and foster an environment of non-domination is as important. To this end, the individuals must know that their aspirations to freedom are rational in the sense that they are warranted in believing that they can truly enjoy their freedom. When the ideal of non-domination is registered in the institutional practices, it becomes a shield against the Sword of Damocles that constitutes domination. Thus, the presence of institutions and all the efforts deployed by the state to block domination are not the direct causes of liberty but merely the means that ensure that the pernicious influence of domination cannot reach and weaken the social bond. What the presence of institutions seeks to bring about when it aims for the ideal of non-domination is to protect liberty, not to define it in any intrinsic way. Conclusion I have tried to explain in this article why I believe, following Philip Pettit, that consequentialist ethics is the best approach or the most favourable heuristic framework to use when attempting to delineate republican freedom. The consequentialist approach is useful especially when one is attempting to understand why and how republican institutions should empower and support the vitality of public life. Freedom defined by the absence of domination requires institutions that ensure the right of every citizen to enjoy their liberty within the limits described in the preceding paragraphs. I have attempted to offer an analysis of the concept of

116 NON-DOMINATION AS A MORAL IDEAL

freedom as non-domination within the framework of consequentialism in order to better understand the meaning of these limits. REFERENCES Baron, M., P.Pettit & M.Slote. 1997. Three Methods of Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Berlin, I. 1958. Two Concepts of Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canto-Sperber, M. 2000. Dictionnaire d’éthique et de philosophie morale. Paris: PUF. Pettit, P. 1993a. ‘Liberalism and republicanism’. Australian Journal of Political Science, 28, 162–89. 1993b. ‘Negative liberty. liberal and republican’. European Journal of Philosophy, 1, 15–38. 1996. ‘Freedom as anti-power’. Ethics, 106, 576–604. 1997a. ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’. Baron et al. 1997:92–174. 1997b. Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. ‘Conséquentialisme’. Canto-Sperber 2000:329–36. Spitz, J.-F. 1995. La liberté politique. Essai de généalogie conceptuelle. Paris: PUF.

9 The Cosmopolitan Scope of Republican Citizenship RYOA CHUNG

However difficult it is to define the scope of consequences of the profound transformations affecting the global order today, it appears that some agreement can be reached that we are witnessing significant changes. The widespread use of the term globalisation, though it’s meaning has become increasingly loose, nevertheless expresses a significant consensus voiced by the public to describe our era. Leaving to one side the task of providing a rigorous definition of the concept of globalisation, I take for granted that the contemporary world order merits the intellectual excitement current in numerous academic fields. A thorough analysis of the empirical features of globalisation calls for a philosophical investigation of the ethical issues stemming from international relations. Sound philosophical premises must guide us towards the normative task of laying out fundamental principles of global justice and, accordingly, devising novel institutional models of global governance without world government in order to address these ethical issues. The international order is characterised by growing webs of structural interdependency at numerous levels (economic, political, technological and environmental) from which individuals, as well as states, can no longer escape. We need not passively subject ourselves to the neoliberal domination of this structural interdependency (which misleadingly presents itself as a natural and morally neutral order). We can choose to investigate the principles of justice that should govern global social cooperation with greater equity and more democratic governance. Needless to say, this ambitious project will not be attempted here. I wish to tackle instead a closely linked question concerning the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship in the context of globalisation. Can we make sense of this notion or are we doomed to entangle ourselves in vain rhetorical proposals? Proponents of the cosmopolitan ideal must answer this question. According to sceptical realists, the idea of a cosmopolitan citizenship projected beyond the territorial delimitation of a political community is an empty conceptual shell. While they may not be entirely wrong, I believe that we can outline one plausible definition of such a concept. My purpose is to define more precisely what kind of political attributes ensue from an understanding of cosmopolitan citizenship. One way to identify

118 REPUBLICANISM

elements of a substantial theory of global citizenship is to present a rival theory to establish points of dissent from which we can build an alternative view. I will first challenge the nationalist reading of citizenship advocated by David Miller, who has presented acute objections to the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship (Miller 2000). I argue that despite efforts made by Miller to place his understanding of citizenship under the heading of republicanism, recent philosophical developments in neo-republican theories, mainly achieved by Philip Pettit (Pettit 1997), do not corroborate any kind of prima facie correlation between republicanism, communitarianism and nationalism that would undermine the possibility of extending the idea of citizenship on a global scale. In fact, it is quite the opposite, since recent contributions from republican thinkers such as James Bohman (1997, 1998, 2001), Maurizio Viroli (2002) and Richard Dagger (1997) enable us to overcome some of the conceptual limitations inherent in the liberal tradition, permitting us to articulate a plausible theory of citizenship within a cosmopolitan ideal of liberal allegiance. Further argument will be needed to qualify this statement in the second part of this essay, but my point of departure stems from David Held’s (1991a, 1995) thorough analysis of globalisation. Should it be true that globalisation erodes state sovereignty, hence undermining the political scope for democratic citizenship, and produces a deficit of democracy at the global level, then we must challenge traditional theories of liberal democracy based on electoral representation in order to understand these issues in a new light. Republicanism establishes a novel conceptual framework in which liberal theories of democracy may be pursued, defining the political expression of cosmopolitan citizenship as following from a normative ideal of global governance without world government. Far from disavowing liberalism, I shall argue that republicanism and liberalism complement each other to produce an innovative theory of world citizenship that is much more plausible and substantial than David Miller allows. Republican Citizenship and Nationalism according to David Miller One of the most interesting and at the same time controversial developments of republicanism in international ethics was introduced by the notorious debate between Andrew Linklater and David Miller on cosmopolitan citizenship (Linklater 1999; Miller 1999). Although I will not discuss Linklater’s cosmopolitan stance, it is noteworthy that his view of cosmopolitan citizenship is closely linked to the notion of a dialogical community, i.e. a global public sphere of critical judgment and deliberation, emerging from a worldwide web of digital technologies that create ‘communication communities’, crossing territorial boundaries, blurring the political delimitations of national communities and enabling us to grasp better the far reaching scope of our obligations towards humanity as a whole. This ‘dialogical approach to world citizenship’ has been championed by Linklater from a Kantian perspective, as well as by James

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 119

Bohman, from a republican standpoint, whose valuable work brings us closer to a fully fleshed theory of cosmopolitan citizenship. As for the position held by David Miller in this debate, he assumes that republicanism sides with nationalism, along with a certain reading of communitarianism which is sceptical about the idea of cosmopolitan liberalism. Miller criticises cosmopolitan citizenship, drawing on the communitarian objection to the abstract, disembodied liberal individual, removed from the community in which her moral agency is fundamentally embedded. According to Miller, we must undoubtedly give some moral weight to our duties towards humanity as a whole, but these obligations attain reality only within the context of a political community that defines each individual’s constitutive identity and primary duties. In other terms, there can be no substantial meaning to the political practice of citizenship without the motivation and sense of responsibility, the two cardinal civic virtues in Miller’s view, which can only arise out of the bonds of patriotic loyalty, shared history and a shared public culture that tie citizens to each other and the common goals of the polis. According to Miller, liberal cosmopolitanism advocates a too thin and passive conception of citizenship, one founded on moral individualism, that cannot solve problems related to collective action since the citizen is regarded merely as a monadic claimant of rights. In sharp contrast, his reading of nationalism propounds a republican conception of citizenship that emphasises mutual obligations and common responsibilities. He claims that these ideas can only be rooted in a homogeneous social context (historically, culturally and territorially circumscribed) which can engender a coherent and consistent conception of the common good, therefore nurturing the necessary motivation and sense of fraternity among members of the community. Miller tries to establish that advocates of liberal cosmopolitanism do not pay sufficient attention to the empirical preconditions (be they cultural, sociological, psychological, etc.1) that epitomise an active citizenship that is truly involved in public debates about the community’s social issues. In other words, cosmopolitanism presupposes the exercise of responsible, active citizenship motivated by the civic virtues which make up republican citizenship. Unfortunately, republican citizenship can only grow in the womb of the nation, so cosmopolitan citizenship is in fact a metaphorical extension of what must be first understood as national citizenship. Furthermore, in Miller’s opinion, we do not have any other historical experience of citizenship beyond political participation within the boundaries of territorial communities. ‘All our experience of citizenship, then, has so far been of bounded citizenship: initially citizenship within the walls of the city-state, later citizenship within the cultural limits of the nation state’ (Miller 1999:69). By contrast, advocates of the cosmopolitan ideal slip into the fictional construction of a plural citizenship with multiple allegiances and get entangled in its confused expression of sovereignty. How can such a notion of so-called differentiated citizenship, which is in truth dislocated and dismembered, be

120 REPUBLICANISM

conceived outside of the traditional (if not immanent in Miller’s view) locus of political life and authority? To be sure, the concept of a plural and differentiated citizenship is indeed complex and invites us to re-evaluate our conceptual parameters in political theory. Miller’s criticism is not without its merits and raises serious and relevant objections.2 This does not mean that we should abandon the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship altogether, but rather that we should acknowledge these difficulties and explore new philosophical avenues, for instance, the conceptual potential of republicanism. What is troublesome in Miller’s understanding of republican citizenship is, first, that it rests upon unquestioned premises, and second, the fact that numerous advocates of neo-republicanism do not endorse this equation with nationalism. For starters, one of the biases undermining Miller’s argument is the fact that he invokes too hastily the testimony of history in his favour and proclaims, more or less explicitly, that the evolution from the city to the nation-state represents the ultimate end of all political entities: in short, the end of history itself. Such conclusions are premature and presumptuous, especially in the context of globalisation wherein nation-states have become multinational and cosmopolitan within themselves. Furthermore, contemporary states seem to evolve with the pace of a changing world in which the equation between cultural identity and political sovereignty is more and more dislocated and in which the state, as a modern institution, has become one among other vectors of power (albeit an inescapable and important one) in a complex constellation of new decision making sites and political actors. Should we not, on the contrary, regard the historical journey from city to nation-state, from federation to regionalism, as an indication that the contours of political bodies do evolve and that the notion of citizenship keeps extending and adapting to the ways in which the theories of democracy are themselves evolving? Has not history proven that the attributes of democratic citizenship have kept expanding to progressively include the integration of slaves formerly banned from the city assembly, as well as non-proprietors excluded by the bourgeoisie in capitalist societies, women ignored from patriarchal hierarchies, ethnic groups ostracised from racist regimes, immigrants and minorities rejected by xenophobic societies? Here lies, in my opinion, one of the greatest assets of liberal democracy, namely its conceptual and institutional flexibility (as opposed to the rigidity of non-liberal societies rooted in dogmatic conceptions of the common good). The suppleness of liberal democracies, which allows for the expansion of the criteria and attributes of citizenship in accordance with the requirements of justice, follows from the axiological neutrality of the state regarding plural conceptions of the good. Therefore, insofar as globalisation extends the scheme of social cooperation beyond the nation-state and engenders new kinds of political structures, why can’t we extend the concept of citizenship on a global scale? I want to argue that the institutional flexibility of deontological liberalism (which gives priority to

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 121

justice over the good), can take reasonable pluralism into account, adapt its political institutions to new kinds of social cooperation and generate a public political culture that individuals and cultural communities can identify with. In other words, contrary to Miller, who thinks that citizenship precedes and conditions the natural configuration of the political community (i.e., the nation-state), it is the evolving realms of rights and duties in their institutional settings that determine the changing attributes of citizenship. No doubt the cultural component of identity (chiefly national identity and moral partiality, in Miller’s view) has important ramifications for moral and political philosophy. Although I do not mean to minimise this issue, it cannot be that cultural identity constitutes the sole motivation. Such a limited view, from the standpoint of a theory of action, would render inexplicable all sorts of political mobilisation and social cooperation. Marxism, for instance, has shown that socioeconomic identity can be a powerful motivating factor for political action that transcends national allegiance and calls, in theory, for international mobilisation. We can draw similar observations from the analysis of the feminist and civil rights movements. While these collective movements are historically embedded in Western culture, they express an undeniable moral universalism that has spread worldwide and continues to mobilise activists and NGO’s regardless of their own nationality or the nationality of those for whom the battles must be fought. In the context of globalisation, new notions such as global goods and global harms define transnational issues (e.g., environmental protection, narcotics traffic control, international security, etc.). They can also account for the motivations that drive individuals, and even governments, to coordinate their collective actions towards common goals, despite their respective cultural identities and conceptions of the good. It is a striking fact that most examples of political mobilisation concerning transnational issues are organised at the level of civil society. According to Held, ‘These are the ‘new’ voices of an emergent ‘transnational civil society’ heard, for instance, at the Rio Conference on the Environment, the Cairo Conference on Population Control, and the Beijing Conference on Women. In short, there are tendencies at work seeking to create new forms of public life and new ways of debating regional and global issues’ (Held 1997:263). This is largely due to the birth of a global public sphere of information and discussion, rendered technically possible by the digital revolution. Miller fails to sufficiently acknowledge the social impact of non-governmental organisations whose expansion and growing visibility provide evidence for an emerging cosmopolitan public culture that has become more and more independent from state structures, transforming the traditional playground of politics. In fact, Miller regards these various civil associations as pressure groups obviously motivated by their own particular interests, but lacking a sense of responsibility towards the common good. The point that needs to be recalled here is that, for Miller, these two civic virtues must lead towards the same goal (the common good) and this can only be

122 REPUBLICANISM

accomplished by an individual who is fully embedded in the ethos of her own community. Unfortunately these two conditions of citizenship—motivation and responsibility—may work against each other. The person who is willing to take up a public role regardless of personal cost may also be the person who is single-mindedly committed to a particular ideal or interest and is therefore not responsible in my sense… Responsibility involves a collective action problem too: there is an obvious temptation to free ride on others’ willingness to moderate their demands in the course of public deliberation… So to act as a responsible citizen, you must have a reasonable assurance that a large majority of your fellow citizens are going to do the same. (Miller 1999:65–6). Here Miller cites the case of free riders who lack a sense of belonging and patriotic loyalty, but nonetheless indulge in the benefits of social cooperation, refusing to share the cost of reciprocity and behaving in a irresponsible manner towards public issues. This seems wrong, since a more plausible interpretation of free riding suggests that it is not fundamentally a matter of cultural identity, but of moral egoism. Chances are that, even within the most homogeneous national community, social issues such as which conception of distributive justice a society should uphold, along with the mutual obligations that this should entail, will confront discordant views. Some citizens will take part in these debates only insofar as they are concerned about the personal costs (not the common good) involved in the collective share of benefits and burdens. Although I do recognise problems with liberal individualism and the social atomisation it engenders, Miller’s conceptual link between the problem of free riders and the question of cultural identity seems to me far too obscure. Having said that, there is no doubt that motivation and sense of responsibility are two civic virtues which embody the thickness of the republican conception of citizenship, in comparison to the thin liberal approach which centres on individual rights and negative freedom. Contemporary theories of liberal democracy must take seriously the pitfalls of neoliberalism (e.g., exacerbated individualism, dissolution of social ties, the loss of the common good) that may ensue from the classical foundations of liberalism. That is precisely why liberal cosmopolitans must not remain insensitive to the pivotal function bestowed on civic virtues in neo-republican theories. Indeed, in the absence of institutionalised spheres of rights and obligations on the global level, the political will to counter hierarchies of power and structures of domination must rely on the civic virtues of citizen pilgrims —as Richard Falk puts it (1995:95)— who communicate information and ideas to the global public and mobilise their actions through NGOs or by organising civil protests and public awareness campaigns. Where Miller seems to go wrong is that the ability to exercise these civic virtues is not inherent in nor conditional on the national identity of

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 123

individuals. This kind of presumption has somewhat stigmatised republicanism. As Maurizio Viroli reports: The belief that republicanism is a form of communitarianism is widespread in international political theory. Jürgen Habermas, for example, has written that republicanism is an intellectual tradition derived from Aristotle based on the principle of citizenship as membership in an ethnic and cultural community that enjoys self-government. In his view, republicanism considers citizens parts of the community who can develop and express their own identity and moral excellence only within a shared tradition and culture that includes a conception of moral goodness. (Viroli 2002:65) Therefore, should we assume that republicanism cannot support a cosmopolitan ideal on the global scale, given the increase in cultural pluralism? My aim is to challenge this scepticism. The burden of proof falls upon the advocates of republicanism to demonstrate that it does not necessarily preclude questions of global justice. Although I subscribe first and foremost to a liberal view of institutional cosmopolitanism (which will be depicted in the following section), I want to argue that the gap between republicanism and liberal cosmopolitanism is more apparent than real. In fact, some key notions of neo-republican lend themselves in fruitful ways to cosmopolitanism. It is worth noting at this point that the most important neo-republican thinkers also reject the correlation between nationalism and republicanism. According to Viroli, republican citizenship is not determined by the criteria of national identity (understood in terms of ethnic, religious, linguistic or cultural homogeneity), but by the active participation in the governance of the polis. Thus, in principle, the concept of republican citizenship can be extended to any political community that serves as a self-determining government for all individuals who will sustain the outcomes of public policies and exercise their autonomy against arbitrary forms of domination. The republican ‘homeland’ is not reducible to the country where one is born. Yet, while it is true for advocates of republicanism that the sense of belonging to a community motivates individuals to work for the common good and nurtures the feeling of solidarity among themselves, this kind of attachment does not stem from merely contingent circumstances, but from the rational attachment to the laws and principles of justice that govern the society. Republican civic virtues do not derive from national identity, but from constitutional patriotism. According to Philip Pettit, the axiological neutrality of the republican state, in regard to individuals’ various conceptions of the good, renders republicanism closer to liberalism rather than communitarianism. One of Pettit’s crucial arguments lies in his assertion that the republican idea of the common good (liberty as non-domination) does not require a cultural substratum but rather a fundamental social component. This social ideal cannot be pursued in a decentralised manner by isolated monads in the state of nature; rather, it involves

124 REPUBLICANISM

a communitarian dimension, an egalitarian view of the common good that cannot, by definition, be sectarian. Allegiance to the principles of a republican government are in no way conditional on the cultural characteristics of individual conceptions of the good. Pettit’s conception of republicanism does justice to the complex realities of our pluralistic societies insofar as liberty as non-domination is thought of as a primary good that is political, not metaphysical, in the Rawlsian sense. Like the liberal project, our proposal—our republican proposal— is motivated by the assumption that the ideal is capable of commanding the allegiance of the citizens of developed multicultural societies, regardless of their more particular conception of the good. Communitarians will maintain against this assumption that the ideal of non-domination is not as neutral as it seems—it is distinctively Western or characteristically masculinist or whatever—and that, neutral or not, it is incapable of motivating people across the familiar divisions of race, religion, gender, and the like… Those who take these lines of criticism are offering, in effect, a counsel of despair about contemporary, developed society. They are saying that there is no possibility of morally motivating allegiance to a polity, other than on the basis of a fairly homogeneous community grouping; that is why they are well described as communitarians. But such thinkers are also offering, in my opinion, a counsel of ignorance (Pettit 1997:96). The Liberal Approach to Institutional Cosmopolitanism I have tried to argue that neo-republicanism must be dissociated from a nationalist reading. The purpose of doing so is to show how a plausible conception of cosmopolitan citizenship, developed within a liberal framework of global governance, must incorporate elements of republican theories in order to overcome traditional liberalism’s conceptual shortcomings. Having said this, the institutional cosmopolitanism to which I subscribe is fundamentally in accordance with a liberal perspective which emphasises the need to create supranational institutions to implement international standards of global justice that protect and allow the effective exercise of individuals’ fundamental rights. Indeed, considering the absence of a natural society in the international sphere, the advantage of the liberal approach, with regard to the cosmopolitan ideal, lies unquestionably in its axiological neutrality. Chances are that proposals for institutional reforms in view of a common ideal of global governance will be more easily accepted through a procedural approach aiming for an overlapping consensus among all actors. At the end of the day, liberal cosmopolitanism seems more plausible from a pragmatic point of view than republican cosmopolitanism, inasmuch as the latter relies heavily (if not solely) on civic virtues and asks perhaps too much of

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 125

individuals’ moral good will. If all agents cannot be expected to behave virtuously on the international scene (it is worth pointing out that even in the domestic sphere republicanism is bound to meet a difficult challenge), the liberal cosmopolitan can at least try to persuade them, strictly on the basis of instrumental rationality and political prudence, of the benefits they could derive from the establishment of a just scheme of rights and obligations that would protect their fundamental interests. Following Kant’s intuition, a good government is not out of reach for selfish ‘demons’ provided they be rational.3 However, it should also be said that liberal cosmopolitanism relies on the warranted belief that the progressive democratisation of international relations and its institutions will also progressively moralise social interactions, bringing agents to judge and justify their actions on normative grounds, encouraging them to behave as responsible world citizens and act out of civic virtue rather than mere self interest. It is precisely in this respect that advocates of the cosmopolitan ideal would gain much by blending republicanism and liberalism in a more comprehensive understanding of global citizenship and cosmopolitan democracy. Cosmopolitan Democracy and Differentiated Sovereignty First and foremost, let us delineate the main characteristics of the normative ideal for global governance. By global governance, we basically mean a world order regulating itself without the need of a world government (that is, a centralised supreme authority with a legitimate monopoly of force).4 But this loose definition of global governance can accommodate a wide variety of institutional settings, ranging from the bipolar system and mutual deterrence equilibrium to the neoliberal ideal of market self-regulation. That is why the descriptive concept needs to be qualified by normative standards. In the context of globalisation, global governance without world government calls for a cosmopolitan theory of democracy based on the notion of differentiated sovereignty. The following developments will briefly summarise the general outlines of this theory, pioneered by thinkers such as Held and Thomas Pogge (see Held 1995; Pogge 1992). At the heart of cosmopolitan democracy lies the Kantian notion of autonomy (which accords with liberal normative individualism). Autonomous agents are not to be passively subjected to public policies that have an impact on their fundamental rights. Therefore, the basic idea consists in promoting individuals’ right to have a say at any level of decision making (be it local, provincial, national, regional or transnational). In other words, following Pogge’s formulation, the notion of plural sovereignty leads us to a ‘multilateral institutional scheme of differentiated sovereignty’ in which a complex system of checks and balances prevents the concentration of power in one site. The novelty of this theory is that it strongly questions the dogma of state sovereignty

126 REPUBLICANISM

(presently eroded in significant aspects) understood as the sole structure of legitimate power and of democratic control. Persons have a right to an institutional order under which those significantly and legitimately affected by a political decision have a roughly equal opportunity to influence the making of this decision — directly or through elected delegates or representatives. Such a human right to political participation also supports greater local autonomy in matters of purely local concern than exists in most current states or would exist in a world state, however democratic. In fact, it supports just the kind of multilateral institutional scheme I have proposed (Pogge 1992:64). In the context of a global scheme of structural interdependency, it is the nature of the issues at stake and the criteria of individuals or population affected by the outcome of public policies—the ‘all-affected principle’ to use M. Saward’s expression (Saward 1999:33)—that must define a new constellation of decisionmaking institutions and practices of democracy. Inspired by the principle of ‘subsidiarité’ at the heart of the European Union constitutional model, decision making authority should be allocated to the smallest unit representing individuals whose fundamental rights (as distinguished from mere interests5) may be affected by the outcome of policies. Differentiated sovereignty theory also involves a complex equilibrium of centralisation and decentralisation processes above, as well as within, states. In other words, some kind of centralisation of international institutions will be needed in order to ensure the universal protection of basic human rights. This institutional move beyond state sovereignty usually characterises the cosmopolitan ideal’s moral universalism, as well as the claim that individuals’ fundamental rights have priority over collective rights or national government prerogatives in cases of extreme conflict. This does not mean that individual rights must always take precedence over collective rights, but normative individualism does entail, in my opinion, that the justification of collective rights must derive from the individual’s right to communal ties and cultural identity. It should be emphasised that the differentiated sovereignty theory justifies a decentralisation process within states in order to protect the political autonomy of smaller communities (according to the principle that authority must be allocated to the smallest political unity of individuals affected by issues concerning only themselves). This highlights the dialectical process of globalisation and fragmentation which underlies cosmopolitan democracy based on plural sovereignty. It is important to point out that cosmopolitan democracy, as I have described it, acknowledges the state as an essential structure of social cooperation. Citizen rights are best secured within states (at least in democratic ones) and it is also probably true that states are better suited to manage a fair balance between majority and minority group rights. Similarly, on the international level, numerous issues

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 127

must be handled by inter governmental decisions. Still, at the end of the day, global governance according to cosmopolitan democracy theory goes far beyond ‘mature anarchy’ as Buzan (1983) would put it. The fact that the hypothesis of world government is rejected does not imply that public powers are not needed to regulate global order. However, differentiated sovereignty theory implies that the state (be it national or global) does not constitute the ultimate figure of political order and democratic legitimacy. The right of autonomy, the primary political good in this institutional cosmopolitan model, corresponds in many ways to the concept of liberty as nondomination. It is not reducible to the negative understanding of liberty as noninterference which generally depicts the neoliberal notion of individual freedom. In this regard, the work of Richard Dagger accurately links the concepts of autonomy and community in what he labels liberal republicanism (Dagger 1997: ch.4). This cosmopolitan model remains essentially liberal in its foundations, since it portrays the world citizen as an individual endowed with fundamental rights on multiple political levels. Deeply enmeshed in a consequentialist approach to the division of labour, the theory of differentiated sovereignty suggests that some types of rights are best protected under the jurisdiction of municipalities (such as the right to elect school boards), the jurisdiction of states (the constitutional protection of individual freedoms, the protection of minorities), the jurisdiction of regions (freedom of movement, free and fair access to the economic market) or under the heading of multilateral accords (right to a safe environment). These examples also illustrate the range of obligations related to global distributive justice that stem from the above, in keeping with a substantive conception of the individual’s right to autonomy and her correlative duty to protect the autonomy of others. According to the primary political good upheld by the theory of cosmopolitan democracy (i.e., the principle of autonomy), the main political attribute of global citizenship consists in the right to participate in democratic decision procedures. This would entail the creation of a central organ of coordination which would supervise the proper assignation of decision-making authorities for issues at stake, as well as for the implementation of institutional structures for electoral representation, public deliberation and democratic referenda at multiple levels. Although the design of its operational practices needs to be worked out, I believe that this normative framework is sound enough to be considered plausible and to guide proposals for institutional reform within the UN model. However, and this is my crucial point, the idea of creating an elective, representative, deliberative democracy on a planetary scale regarding all matters great and small is obviously an utopian endeavour. It is a question of moral responsibility and intellectual integrity to acknowledge the limitations inherent in this scheme of institutional cosmopolitanism. We need, then, to adopt a more contextualist approach, in keeping with a pragmatic understanding of normative ideals, that can accommodate the inescapable coexistence of a plurality of models and of democratic practices, given the structural complexity of the

128 REPUBLICANISM

international sphere (which, cannot be apprehended strictly in terms of the domestic analogy) and its cultural diversity. This is precisely where the far reaching scope of some key notions of republicanism must be taken into account. From Electoral Representation to Contestatory Democracy Given that the most significant theory of republicanism, that of Pettit, is explicitly tailored for a statist view of domestic society, it is understandable that there is scepticism towards contemplating the possibility of a cosmopolitan extension of republicanism, especially within a normative framework of global governance without a world state. But it is precisely because republicanism, unlike liberalism, does not equate a citizen’s sovereign authority only to the electoral procedures of representative democracy that republicanism tells us something quite important about the meaning of cosmopolitan democracy. The problem has been formulated in a thought-provoking fashion by Held, who notes how the bluring of the territorial delimitations of social interaction by globalisation forces us to redefine the classical parameters of our traditional conception of democracy. The liberal theory of democracy rests on unquestioned premises which are now being challenged. Following the contractualist tradition, liberal theories of democracy have linked the principle of territoriality (enabling us to delimitate the constituency of the social contract in terms of insiders and outsiders) with the practice of democracy. Within the national delimitation of the liberal state, a double faceted conceptual relation of symmetry and congruence has been fostered: Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there has been an assumption at the heart of liberal democratic theory concerning a’symmetrical’ and ‘congruent’ relationship between political decisionmakers and the recipients of political decisions. In fact, symmetry and congruence are assumed at two crucial points: first, between citizen-voters and the decision-makers whom they are, in principle, able to hold to account; and secondly, between the ‘output’ (decisions, policies and so on) of decision-makers and their constituents—ultimately, ‘the people’ in a delimited territory (Held 1995:241). Last, but not least, the implementation of liberal democracy in modern states hinges on the fundamental principle of consent that is expressed through citizens’ votes and majority rule. The process of democratic legitimatisation thus depends on electoral representation and, bluntly put, on polling results. Globalisation challenges our traditional understanding of liberal democracy since the complex webs of structural interdependency cross national borders and render national sovereignty problematic. We may ask ourselves what remains of our democratic control when decision makers decide policies abroad, impacting our lives, while preventing us from having our say. If relations of symmetry and

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 129

congruence are more and more dislocated and no longer neatly fit either the principle of territoriality or the state structure itself, thus shattering the premises of liberal democracy, what is to become of the notions of consent and accountability? In other words, the erosion of state sovereignty, in the context of globalisation, brings in its wake the erosion of representative and electoral democracy, thus raising the crucial issues of political legitimacy and authority. Unless liberal cosmopolitanism is able to reproduce at the global level the institutional setting of representative and electoral democracy in order to resolve every type of issue at stake (which is doubtful), we will be left with an inescapable deficit of democracy. This is why we must explore the alternative conception of republican democracy defined, according to Philip Pettit, as contestatory democracy. Pettit does not deny the constitutive function of the citizens’ active involvement in the legislative and deliberative process. However, the emphasis has shifted to the fundamental role of public judgement and contestation (which presupposes a dialogical community composed of public forums of deliberative democracy). Here, the political attribute of the citizen’s sovereign power does not solely depend on her ability to vote, but in the opportunity to voice grievances, to protest against constraints which she finds arbitrary and to demand accountability, as well as the opportunity to attract the attention of the community to social issues which she judges important for the common good (be it the principle of autonomy or the idea of liberty as nondomination). Within this theoretical framework, democracy and the sovereignty of the citizens are measurable not so much in terms of the formal capacity to consent (though votes) but rather by the effective power to contest the established authorities (which means that the latter are accountable for their actions and must at all times make their justifications public). The metaphor used by Pettit to exemplify the double role of the citizen is quite eloquent: the citizen is at once the author (co-legislator) and the editor of the content of laws in the sense that the citizen gets to have the final say in terms of revision, selection, or nullification of public policies. The upshot of our discussion is that if we focus on the republican need to have institutions that will identify and empower all and only the common, recognisable interests of citizens, then we are naturally directed to a twodimensional ideal of democracy. Under this ideal the people have powers of two kinds, one authorial, the other editorial. And under this ideal, due place is made, on the one hand, for institutions of electoral democracy and, on the other, for procedural, consultative, and appellate resources of a piece with measures that traditional republicans have always emphasised (Pettit 1997:296). In order to illustrate how republicanism can be integrated into an institutional scheme of democratic global governance, let us take as an example one of the most interesting (albeit most ambitious) reform proposals within the UN

130 REPUBLICANISM

suggested by advocates of cosmopolitan democracy. This would consist in the creation of a second civil assembly organically integrated into the UN structure and which would create a political forum for contestatory democracy. In keeping with the normative individualism at the heart of the theory of cosmopolitan democracy, the spirit behind this institutional proposal is to implement the principle of autonomy at the level of the transnational civil society. This global civil assembly would be composed of representatives directly elected (in the first stage) by citizens of the world, as opposed to being simply appointed by national governments, with the mandate to engage in democratic debates on global issues concerning universal human rights. The idea of incorporating this second assembly in the architecture of the United Nations does not necessarily disempower the general assembly in matters directly involving intergovernmental relations but it certainly challenges the statist foundation underlying our modern understanding of world order since the Westphalian model, thus possibly foreshadowing a shift of paradigm in international relations. Despite its imperfections, we can inspire ourselves with the model of the functional coexistence of the Council of Ministers and the European parliament who share, at least in theory, decision making powers within the European Union. The creation of a second civil assembly within the UN structure would counterbalance the powers of states, holding the representatives of the general assembly accountable to the people. It remains unclear if such a second assembly requires legislative powers beyond the simple ratification of a fundamental constitutional charter. Still, according to the republican understanding of contestatory democracy, substantial meaning and power would already be bestowed to this second civil assembly in its ability to contest international policies deemed questionable, in its capacity to voice grievances, to create commissions, to examine the reports issued by the Security Council, and to point out the priorities on the General Assembly’s agenda. In other words, it can demonstrate its political clout as a kind of ombudsman, having a final say on the activities of the Security Council and the General Assembly, and by exercising a real and definite (editorial) authority through the right of veto at last resort, one which could have jurisdiction over all other authorities in specific contexts. For example, the effective power of this second civil assembly could block international policies that go against the Declaration of Human Rights, it could override the WTO agreements on pharmaceutical patents in order to honour the priority of universal basic rights (including rights of subsistence, among which the right to access health care in contexts of destitution6), it could demand substantial reforms within the Security Council or, at the very least, counterbalance the political, economical and military hegemony of a superpower by forcing it to submit itself to the verdict of an authentic international consultation on matters concerning, for instance, the normative principles of collective security.

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 131

Conclusion I have previously tried to argue that David Miller’s nationalist reading of republican citizenship wrongly disregards the institutional flexibility of liberalism, based on its axiological neutrality, which has historically accounted for the evolving notion of democratic citizenship. Given the fact that the complex web of social cooperation is expanding in the context of globalisation, there is no reason to believe that our understanding of citizenship cannot extend and evolve beyond the boundaries of the national community. The contribution of James Bohman stands out in revealing the far reaching cosmopolitan scope of republicanism. Although I will not discuss his ideas here,7 it is important to stress that his dialogical approach to world citizenship is closely tied to a thorough analysis of the globalisation of the public sphere and enables us to delineate more precisely the political expression of the cosmopolitan ideal. According to Bohman: Effective freedom requires only that decisions be made for reasons that citizens would choose even if they do not have operational control over policies…citizens are thus free from the domination of arbitrary power in the following way: either they are able to refuse obligations, or they are able to participate directly in the procedures of deliberation that authorise collectively binding decisions. (Bohman 2001:13) Although I share his conclusions, Bohman refers to cosmopolitan republicanism whereas I maintain a liberal approach of institutional cosmopolitanism focussing on the implementation of a multilayered scheme of individual rights in keeping with the differentiated sovereignty theory which, I believe, neither republicanism alone nor the dialogical approach of world citizenship would yield. This liberal approach to institutional cosmopolitanism needs, however, to incorporate the republican understanding of contestatory democracy found in Pettit’s work in order to compensate at the global level for the limitations of traditional liberal conceptions of democracy based on electoral representation. ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS I am indebted to Ook Chung and Alex Sager for their valuable assistance with the English version of this article. I am also grateful to Jocelyne Couture for offering insightful comments on the previous draft written in French. Should unclarities remain in this shorter version, they are, of course, my sole responsibility. NOTES 1. W.Kymlicka would also add the linguistic precondition (Kymlicka 2001:317–26).

132 REPUBLICANISM

2 For a thorough examination and a convincing critical reply to Miller’s view see Weinstock 2001:53–66. 3. Kant, Perpetual Peace (1795), Ak.VIII, 366. 4. For a thorough discussion of numerous interpretations of this concept see Rosenau & E.-O.Czempiel 1992. 5. I owe this point to Simon Caney. 6. Not only in cases of extreme emergency as stipulated by the Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Doha, November 2001. 7. A more thorough examination of his ideas is provided in the lengthier French version of this article (see Chung 2004).

REFERENCES Bohman, J. 1997. ‘The public spheres of the world citizen’. Bohman & Lutz-Bachmann 1997:179–200. 1998. ‘The globalization of the public sphere: cosmopolitan publicity and cultural pluralism’, The Modern Schoolman, 75, 101–17. 2001. ‘Cosmopolitan republicanism: citizenship, freedom and global political authority’. The Monist, 84/1, 3–21. Bohman, J. & M.Lutz-Bachmann, eds. 1997. Perpetual Peace. Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Buzan, B. 1983. People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations. Brighton: Wheatsheaf. Chung, R. 2004. ‘Les attributs républicains de la citoyenneté cosmopolitique’. Duhamel & Lacroix 2004 (forthcoming). Dagger, R. 1997. Civic Virtues. Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duhamel, A. & A.Lacroix, eds. 2004 (forthcoming). Ethique et politique dans l’espace mondial, Montreal: Liber. Falk, R. 1995. On Humane Governance. Toward a New Global Politics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Held, D. 1991a. ‘Democracy, the Nation-State and the Global System’. Held 1991b: 197–235. ed. 1991b. Political Theory Today. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order. From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1997. ‘Democracy and globalization’. Global Governance, 3, 251–67. Holden B., ed. 1999. Global Democracy. Key Debates. London: Routledge. Hutchings, K. & R.Dannreuther, eds. 1999. Cosmopolitan Citizenship. London: MacMillan Press. Kymlicka, W. 2001. ‘Citizenship in an era of globalization: commentary on Held’. Politics in the Vernacular. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 317–26. Linklater, A. 1999. ‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’. Hutchings & Dannreuther 1999, 35–59. Miller, D. 1999. ‘Bounded citizenship’. Hutchings & Dannreuther 1999, 60–80. 2000. Citizenship and National Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

COSMOPOLITAN SCOPE OF REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP 133

Pogge, T.W. 1992. ‘Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty’. Ethics, 103, 48–75. Rosenau, J.N. & E.-O.Czempiel, eds. 1992. Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saward, M. 1999. ‘A critique of Held’. Holden 1999:17–46. Viroli, M. 2002. Republicanism. New York: Hill and Wang. Weinstock, D.M. 2001. ‘Prospects for transnational citizenship and democracy’. Ethics and International Affairs, 15/2, 53–66. World Trade Organization Ministerial. 2001. Conference of the WTO in Doha, November 2001.

10 Patriotic, Not Deliberative, Democracy CHARLES BLATTBERG

Conversation must naturally follow the spirit of the age. ‘Orlando Sabertash’, The Art of Conversation (Mitchell 1842:33) I Both those who defend a ‘patriotic’ politics and those in favour of a deliberative conception of democracy call on us to try and respond to conflict with conversation rather than just negotiation or bargaining (Blattberg 2000; Bohman & Rehg 1997; Elster 1998). And since conversation aims for understanding, for integration or reconciliation, while negotiation requires compromise, the making of trade-offs and concessions, both patriotism and deliberative democracy can be said to have roots in classical republicanism, that pre-modern ideology according to which a just politics requires citizens to strive for their ‘common good’ (e.g. Aristotle 1984; Machiavelli 1970; Arendt 1959). To classical republicans, negotiation is the mark of a polity dominated by factions, one seen as fundamentally corrupt, this being how they would interpret the politics advocated by contemporary pluralist political thinkers (e.g. Berlin 1969; Hampshire 2000). While neither the modern patriot nor the deliberative democrat would go that far, both nevertheless share the classical republican’s concern for the common good, and so both will be found voicing worries about too much negotiation. That said, when it comes to conversation, what the patriot and the deliberative democrat mean by this is not the same. In the theories of deliberative democracy a central role is given to what is described as a fundamentally ‘non-coercive’ form of dialogue; mostly this is called ‘conversation’, though sometimes also ‘negotiation’, but it is always contrasted with ‘bargaining’ (or, confusingly, ‘negotiation’), the latter being characterised as fundamentally self-interested and coercive. Semantics aside, it is evident that the preference here is for conflicting interlocutors to truly listen to each other, to strive for genuine understanding rather than just an accommodation of their differences, and with this, at least, the patriot can have no complaint. Where the two approaches diverge is that in patriotism conversation is conceived of as that ordinary, everyday sort of dialogue that is carried out in line with one’s common sense, while, to the

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 135

deliberative democrat, interlocutors should conform to a theory of conversation, one which would have them respect a pre-established, systematic set of procedures. This theory, moreover, is at the centre of a particular conception of democracy, one which calls upon the state and civil society to relate in ways that would be discouraged by the patriot. Now, given that I count myself as amongst those who favour patriotism, I want to try and lend support to the approach here by offering some criticisms of deliberative democracy. II The first has to do with the rules of conversation that deliberative democrats tend to recommend. Jürgen Habermas has offered us an account of three groups of them. One is logical and semantic: if there is to be genuine deliberation, he suggests, those participating must strive to use their predicates consistently and avoid making contradictions or giving varied meanings to the same expression. A second group derives from the assumption that interlocutors sincerely wish to reach an agreement: speakers must defend only what they really believe to be true, and those who would dispute a notion not under discussion must provide a reason for doing so. And the third group is meant to ensure that minds change only as a result of the better argument: no one competent to speak must be excluded from the discourse, and everyone must be allowed to question or introduce whatever assertion they see fit (Habermas 1990:87–9). Let us take each in turn. Even if we accept the understandings of logic and semantics that are implied by the first group, demanding that their standards be met is sure to rule out a number of contributions that I just cannot see us wanting to exclude. For example, humour, with its tendency to wordplay, would have to be prohibited, this accounting for Sammy Basu’s suggestion that ‘Habermas is perhaps the apogee of interlocutory humorlessness’ (Basu 1999:308), as would any and all references to political art, which makes one wonder about Shelley’s famous declaration that ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World’ (Shelley 1977:508). Now while some deliberative democrats have come to be more accepting of the presence of such things during the deliberations, none are willing to welcome them into the ‘chamber’ of the concept of deliberation itself, that is, to see them as valid forms of rationality in their own right; on the contrary, they are, at best, viewed as tolerable exceptions to the process. But, as I have argued elsewhere, humour is a form of interpretation, which is to say that its employment in political discussion is a matter of (practical) reason (Blattberg 2003a; Rose 2001–2002), and it strikes me that the same can be said of invocations of political art (though artworks may, one should add, also be approached non-interpretively) (e.g. Grenier 2001). As for the second group, the demand that interlocutors consistently tell the truth (as Habermas conceives of this) strikes me as, at the very least, revealing of his failure to appreciate that such things as rhetoric, exaggeration, flattery, the odd white but tactful lie, and so on, can sometimes contribute, and significantly

136 REPUBLICANISM

so, to reconciliation.1 At the very most, one might go along with none other than Don Quixote for whom ‘nothing that is directed at a virtuous end…can be called deception’ (Cervantes 2000:631), or, as King Lear’s disguised but ‘honest’ Kent once pointed out, If but as well I other accents borrow, That can my speech defuse, my good intent May carry through (I.iv.1–4) This, the possibility of falsehood contributing to truth, is obviously a difficult and complex issue. Perhaps an (admittedly controversial) distinction is in order here between what we might call the ‘plain truth’ on the one hand and the ‘moral truth’ on the other, it being the latter which can occasionally be served by deception. But rather than delve too deeply into the matter here I will, at this point, simply suggest that Habermas’ conception of truth-telling in conversation is not flexible enough to take account of this complexity. Indeed, the demand that speakers in politics defend only what they really believe to be true seems to constitute not only a misguided ideal, but reveals a utopianism which is at odds with the very nature of political practice itself. For politics is a matter of responding to conflict, and there are times when the plain truth itself must be considered one of the antagonists. One could also charge Habermas with utopianism as a result of his third group of rules, the one demanding that anyone competent be allowed to participate. For this leaves us wondering whether legislative proceedings, which generally restrict speaking rights to elected representatives alone, are acceptable, or even whether it is permitted to limit participation to one’s fellow citizens, they being, after all, the ones who must live their lives under the laws which result. Not that contributions from non-citizens shouldn’t be welcome, only that, when it comes time to really decide, a citizenry should have the right to do so on its own. Habermas’s rules, however, imply a cosmopolitanism which is incompatible with this. Difficulties with the content of these rules aside, there is also a more general problem. It arises from the fact that the rules in question are said to have their basis in theory, meaning that they are considered detached from any practical context; as Habermas himself describes those dialogues he favours, ‘discourses are islands in a sea of practice’ (Habermas 1982:235). But it is only within practical contexts that persons may skilfully judge what—and what is not—appropriate to a given conversation, and this requires not the application of some theory but, if anything, that degree of sensitivity which comes from the successful employment of one’s common sense. Now common sense is an interpretive form of judgement which must be distinguished from theoretical reason in that it is incompatible with the application of a previously formulated systematic whole to a context (Gadamer 1989: 19–30). It is because of this, moreover, that it avoids the reductiveness, and so distortion, that many have suggested inevitably comes

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 137

with theory (Clarke & Simpson 1989; Furrow 1995; Levine 1998; Blattberg 2000: ch.l). Patriotic conversation, it can be said, avails itself of just such a practical form of judgement, it being thoroughly hermeneutical. To the patriot, while it may be helpful to articulate a few culturally-relative maxims about the practice of conversation (Burke 1993), any theory will, in the end, only get in the way. Partly this is because the ability to carry out a conversation is a skill, a ‘knowing how’ rather than a ‘knowing that’ (Ryle 1949: ch.21), and no skill can ever be articulated either in the way, or to the degree, that theory requires. But it is also because any theory of conversation will necessarily have the effect of sheltering the conversational process itself from conversation, it being theory’s aim to, as one famous theoretical philosopher once put it, ‘present some matter so thoroughly researched that there remains no room for doubt, and so solidly presented that there remains no need for further discussion’ (Mirandola 1967:110) To the patriot, however, one must expect that a politics of conversation will, at least occasionally, consist of conversations about conversation itself, which is why, if there are to be rules guiding them, then these ought to be, not rules of theory, but rules of thumb. The reliance upon theory is responsible for another difficulty with deliberative democracy: its bias. Deliberative democrats often claim that their theories are ‘just formal’ (Chambers 1996:164, 172), but in fact there tends to be at least three kinds of ideological assertions derived directly from them.2 First, the deliberations called for are said to be especially at home within the bounds of civil society, in particular, in its public sphere; only later, once they’ve concluded, are those conclusions meant to be transmitted or ‘pressed upon’ the state. This, it is clear, is all about the development of ‘public opinion’, about the ‘will-formation’ of a demos located within a civil society seen as autonomous from the state. But such a conception, we should appreciate, comes with a tendency to emphasise such democratic representative mechanisms as polling and referenda over political parties, the former being much more at home in republican political systems such as those of Germany or the United States than in parliamentary ones such as those of Canada or Britain.3 In a parliamentary system, the background assumption is that the power to govern descends from ‘the Crown’ to Parliament, while it is ‘the People’ who serve as the source of power in the republican; hence signs such as that posted above the entrance to the German Reichstaag: ‘To the German People’. Because as Karl Marx once put it, ‘in a [republican] democracy the constitution, the law, the state, insofar as it is a political constitution, is itself only a self-determination of the people, and a particular content of the people’ (Marx 1975:31). Not so to parliamentarians, however, for whom the locus of political power is, due to its different source, considered otherwise situated: closer to the citizenry’s representatives in Parliament, and so within the domain of the state, than in civil society, the home of the People. This tends to make the political party’s role in parliamentary democratic representation more significant than the poll or referendum as the party, given its

138 REPUBLICANISM

presence directly within parliament, is much closer to political power. Moreover, rather than lending support to a conception of the state as a tool distinct from the demos which uses it, the party is, through its membership, considered an institution capable of connecting parliament, and so the state, to civil society. With deliberative democrats, however, whether or not some of them also call for deliberations to take place within the institutions of the state, all consistently emphasise the quality of the discourse located within the public sphere, doing so in a way which invariably affirms civil society’s independence from, rather than connection with, that state. Indeed, state and civil society are sometimes even said to partake of qualitatively different forms of power: a ‘communicative’ one said to arise from successful deliberation in civil society’s public sphere, and an ‘administrative’ one associated with the functions of the state (Habermas 1996: 307–308, 486–7). As a result of all this, regardless of their divergences over the balance that should be struck between the two elements of that famous accommodation, ‘liberal democracy ’,4 all deliberative democrats can be said to assume that such a balance is indeed necessary. Each set of principles—the liberal and the democratic—is thus considered as practically rooted in independently distinct domains: the state for the former and the public sphere for the latter. The tendency to favour some democratic institutions over others is thus but an effect of this, and it is a tendency that, I believe, reveals an insensitivity towards the diversity of real-world democratic political cultures and so the political institutions that express them. No good general account of conversation in politics should, in-itself, have anything to say about particular institutions, since institutions must reflect the traditions of the specific polities within which they are set rather than any abstract theory. It goes virtually without saying that the endorsement of liberal democracy constitutes a second case of ideological bias on the part of those deliberative democrats who back it. The affirmation itself is generated by one of the conditions of discourse said to be established by the theory: the respect for the equal liberty of individuals. But is equality, of whatever form, really a requirement of genuine conversation? I do not believe so. True, those participating must be willing to speak and listen in turn if they are to have a hope of coming to an understanding, and this means struggling together in the attempt to articulate truths that both may share in common. But they do not have to be equal to do these things; on the contrary, radically unequal interlocutors, whether in terms of wealth, power, communication skills, size, etc., are still capable of demonstrating the necessary will. Indeed, I would suggest that, ironically enough, deliberative democrats themselves do not have room for an equality of interlocutors, for even when it comes to what they describe as the ‘ideal case’— when, that is, ‘the only power that prevails, is, as Habermas puts it, the “force of the better argument”’—such power is simply not, as they claim, ‘a force equally available to all’ (Cohen & Rogers 2003) and this for the simple reason that some people are just smarter than others. Rather than demanding equality as so

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 139

understood, then, we would do better to follow Martin Buber’s suggestion that genuine conversation requires only a kind of ‘symmetry’ between interlocutors, one that arises from their willingness to participate in the genuine back-and-forth —the tactful speaking and earnest listening—that is essential to it (Buber 1947b, 1970). Furthermore, it should be noted that the theories of deliberative democracy lead to the affirmation of equal liberty in an antipolitical way, which is to say that the principle is asserted such that it is to be inaccessible to dialogue. For the implication is that we should be granting it special protection when it comes to conflicts between it and other values, perhaps even—as in the case of many of the more liberal deliberative democrats—by enshrining those rights considered to derive from it within a justiciable constitution (e.g. Nino 1996: ch.7). But this ensures that those conflicts may be met not with conversation or negotiation but with the pleading that courtroom proceedings require. Now, although I myself am a (Canadian) liberal, I must admit to being astounded at the assumption revealed here, namely, that everyone in society is expected not only to affirm this particular ideology, but also a ‘neutralist’ form of it, which is to say one which makes support for a justiciable constitution virtually axiomatic. It is, however, just because of the genuine ideological diversity present within Western polities that their citizens often find themselves facing conflicts which involve the liberty and equality of individuals, and the only way they are going to respond to those conflicts politically is if they refuse to award these values an overriding status from the start. The same applies to any and all of the deliberative democrat’s rules. For, one is led to ask, why do the liberal deliberative democrats stop with the equal liberty of individuals? That is, why not enshrine into law— constitutional or otherwise— all of the rules purportedly essential for successful deliberation? For example, how about a statute that would prohibit those participating in political discourse from lying? Of course few, if any, deliberative democrats would actually support this but, given their presuppositions, I fail to see why. For on what grounds would they distinguish it from those laws derived from the other rules associated with their theory? That is why, once again, I would suggest that only an approach which takes as its starting point not some theory but the practices constitutive of a specific country’s political culture can help us make the necessary distinctions. Third, deliberative democrats tend to recommend greater levels of political participation than is currently evident in Western polities. In this they can be said to be especially close to classical republicans, although obviously for different reasons given that few, if any, deliberative democrats will be heard echoing the ancient claim that the life of politics must be considered an intrinsic good in its own right. Rather, their call for more participation is at least partly derived from their theory’s requirement than anyone competent to participate be allowed to do so. Regardless, to the modern patriot any such abstract call for more participatory political cultures is inappropriate. This is not because more participation is seen as a necessarily bad thing; ironically, the patriot can concur with the classical

140 REPUBLICANISM

republican that political liberty ought to be viewed as an intrinsic good. But the patriot will add the caveat that it must be seen as one such good among many, one which, like the others, requires different kinds and degrees of emphasis for it to be properly fulfilled in different contexts, different political cultures. That is why the patriot considers the call for more (or less) participation in politics as more an ideological than a philosophical matter, which is to say one that ought to be highly relative to given polities. No philosophical account of conversation ought to have very much to say about how many people should be joining in; rather, this is just the kind of thing that we and our compatriots ought to be conversing about. Another general difficulty arises from what strikes me as the deliberative democrat’s too-sharp distinction between just and rational deliberation or conversation on the one hand and self-interested and coercive negotiation or bargaining on the other. In deliberative democracy, genuinely conversing is said to require the offering of reasons for one’s position as distinct from emotional appeals or interests, the latter being, ostensibly, characteristic of the bargainer. By reasons what is meant is that arguments are not to refer to particular persons or groups but must instead constitute disengaged and generalised claims which speak to the good of everyone (Habermas 1976:109). Some deliberative democrats have gone even further, demanding that reasonable assertions be ‘reciprocal’, meaning that one must be able to assume that others who do not share one’s particular world-view should nevertheless be able to accept them (Gutmann & Thompson 1996: ch.2). Either way, the assumption continues to be that good practical reason must take the form of theoretical reason, or at least be disengaged in the way demanded by most modern forms of theory. But one does not need disengagement to determine the common good; on the contrary, it is a barrier to doing so and will be recognised as such when we appreciate that the common good is necessarily something shared by a specific community in a specific historical context, its members being capable of appreciating their place within it only if they can remain engaged with their own specificity. That is why classical republicans could never have even contemplated citizens taking on a stance as detached as deliberative democrats recommend, as well as why modern patriots share this rejection of detachment. By doing so, I would suggest, the latter are able to offer us a much more plausible account of what it means to fulfil the common good in politics. This account begins with the recognition that conversation, whether public or private, requires interlocutors to remain intimately connected with their goods and so their identities as a whole if they are to be able to listen for ways of transforming them in order to bring about reconciliation. Realising the common good is not a matter of transcending differences, of reaching an agreement about some uniform, detached thing, for it must arise instead from the integration of those goods which are constitutive of the selves or identities of the persons involved. Only this way can reconciliation be considered compatible with a respect for difference; understanding, hermeneutics tells us, being always a

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 141

matter of understanding differently. That said, if the process is to be viable, the assumption is that there is already some sharing, some integration, between the conflicting parties there to begin with. This needs to be so not only as regards the members of a given political community, but also between such communities and so, potentially, at the global level—if, that is, we are to be able to speak of a diplomacy which consists of conversation and not just negotiation.5 The plausibility of patriotic conversation is only enhanced when we contrast it with another assumption underlying the deliberative democrat’s identification of the common good with disengaged generalisability: the notion that participating interlocutors must exhibit something of an altruistic spirit if the common good is to be fulfilled. The problem here, quite simply, is that it makes the call for conversation in politics smack of naiveté, particularly when we take account of the point made earlier about the many inequalities that conflicting interlocutors can be expected to bring with them to the political arena. To the patriot, however, it would be only a slight exaggeration to say that participants in a conversation are ‘selfish’, for their struggle is for nothing other than developing ways of avoiding those concessions required by negotiation, for transforming, rather than compromising, their sense of what is good so that it can be realised more, rather than less, authentically. Conversation, as we have seen, requires that one really listen to the other, to the justifications they are offering for their position, the hope being that one can learn something from them and so incorporate the truths they contain into one’s own, improved account of what should be done. To the patriot, this requires not altruism but, if anything, what we might refer to as a non-instrumental form of enlightened self-interest.6 Obviously, then, patriotism assumes a substantive rather than procedural conception of ethics, it rejecting the selfishness-altruism dichotomy underlying the latter. This, moreover, allows the patriot to avoid another difficulty plaguing the deliberative democrat, or would if he or she recognised it. Like patriotism, deliberative democracy accepts that there are times when it is legitimate for citizens to give up on achieving consensus, times, that is, when one must accept that the conversation has unavoidably broken down (Blattberg 2000; Chambers 1996:160). It is for the patriot alone, however, that determining such cases is considered a matter of engaging that form of practical reason which I associated above with common sense, one which we can specify further here as sharing a great deal of the spirit of Aristotle’s notion of phronesis or practical wisdom. Moreover, the move to negotiation that will (hopefully) follow such a breakdown is not seen to consist of some stark motivational shift from ethics to selfinterestedness, nor from a formal to an instrumental form of rationality. On the contrary, the patriot can be said to concur here with the pluralist for whom ‘goodfaith’ negotiations are those which arise from a willingness to tolerate the other, to make at least some concessions for reasons other than that one feels forced to do so. While the deliberative democrat does distinguish between fair and unfair bargaining, the former being said to consist of the respect of procedures meant to ensure that parties have an equal opportunity to pressure each other (Habermas

142 REPUBLICANISM

1996:166–7), those parties are nevertheless still considered to be acting in accord with an instrumental form of rationality; as such, there is no place for viewing them as willing to make the concessions which good-faith negotiations require. Negotiation as so-understood cannot be associated with a conception of practical reason which requires either the respect of certain abstract deontic constraints or the straightforward employment of disengaged calculations of rational choice. These, however, are precisely the only possibilities conceivable to the deliberative democrat. Indeed even the sometimes legitimate move to force— now arising when negotiations have unavoidably broken-down—cannot, in the deliberative democrat’s terms, be considered rational, for this move, I suggest, also necessitates a judgement which is engaged with rather than disengaged from the context at hand. In sum, then, while deliberative democrats can claim to have a theory which guides them as to how to deliberate democratically, that theory is necessarily silent about how we might determine when it ought to be suspended. The deliberative democrat, one might say, just doesn’t know when to stop. The final difficulty with deliberative democracy that I want to raise here is, I think, the most significant. Above, I described the deliberative democrat as calling for a politics which, like the classical republican’s and the modern patriot’s but unlike the pluralist’s, affirms the ‘common good’.7 That said, the deliberative ideal here is arrived at quite differently from that of the other two, the assumption being, as we have seen, that deliberation should aim for generalisable interests which require individuals to at least partly disengage from their particular identities. One might add here that this makes available only a very restricted form of solidarity between citizens, one which has been described as a ‘solidarity among strangers’ (Habermas 1996:308), while, with both the patriot and classical republican, the way is made clear for upholding a kind of friendship between citizens, one which I believe is essential if they are to be considered genuine compatriots. We have also taken note of the particular way in which the deliberative democrat’s discourse theory is said to respect ‘the boundaries between “state” and “society”’ (Habermas 1996:209), the two being asserted as independent of each other and an emphasis being placed on the autonomy of civil society’s public sphere. But this separation (as well as the embrace of the fragmentation or plurality of discourses within the public sphere that sometimes comes with it (Habermas 1996:168–76, 373–4; Dryzek 2000:50–51)) ensures that deliberative democrats have no place for a notion of the common good that is larger than that of the demos, which is to say that they have no place for a conception of the state as, at least on occasion, expressing an ‘ethical community’ (Habermas 1996:296), one consisting of the whole citizenry, including those citizens who spend more of their time in and around the state or economy than the public sphere. The result, I want to argue, is a serious deficiency. There are two reasons for this. The first has to do with the essentially functionalist grounds upon which the deliberative democrat affirms the independence of the domains of state and civil society. To deliberative democrats, the state cannot exemplify communicative action, which is to say it

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 143

cannot be the locus of a genuine political conversation because, unlike the public sphere, it must meet certain imperatives if it is to secure its longevity and stability. Amongst the most significant of these, it is said, is that there are times when state agents simply must come to a decision, and this means that they have not the luxury to deliberate in a genuinely open-ended way. Interestingly, some social choice critics of deliberative democracy have made the same claim about deliberations in the public sphere, pointing out that deliberation theorists…wish away the vulgar fact that under democracy deliberation ends in voting… Deliberation may lead to a decision that is reasoned: it may enlighten the reasons the decision is taken and elucidate the reasons it should not be taken. Even more, these reasons may guide the implementation of the decision, the actions of the government. But the authorization for these actions, including coercion, originates from voting, counting heads, not from discussion (Przeworski 1998:141–2). Deliberative democrats, however, can be read as having effectively countered this charge and thus re-emphasised the state’s distinctiveness when they argue that government is not only responsible for the ‘implementation’ of these decisions since it is, for the most part, within its domain and not that of the public sphere that those decisions are taken. Not subject to a similar pressure to arrive at a decision, to reach some kind of closure, those situated within the public sphere have the luxury of a certain openness to develop influential discourses, one unavailable to state agents. As John Dryzek writes, Democratic life is not just the endless interplay of discourse. There have to be moments of decisive collective action, and in contemporary societies it is mainly (but not only) the state that has this capacity. Discourses and their contests do not stop at the edge of the public sphere; they can also permeate the understandings and assumptions of state actors. Yet it is important to maintain a public sphere autonomous from the state, for discursive interplay within the public sphere is always likely to be less constrained than within the state. It is within the public sphere that insurgent discourses and identities can first establish themselves. (Dryzek 2000:78–9) Similarly, according to Habermas, Only the political system can ‘act’. It is a subsystem specialized for collectively binding decisions whereas the communicative structures of the public sphere constitute a far-flung network of sensors that react to the pressure of society-wide problems and stimulate influential opinions. The public opinion that is worked up via democratic procedures into communicative power cannot ‘rule’ of itself but can only point the use of

144 REPUBLICANISM

administrative power in specific directions. (Habermas 1996:300; see also Habermas 1996:361–2; Bohman 1996:179) In deliberative democracy, then, the voice of the people is meant to be heard more through its having established a certain ‘context of discovery’ (Habermas 1996:307) as a result of deliberations within the public sphere than through voting, and it is said to be able to do this specifically because its speakers, unlike state agents, do not feel a similar pressure to decide. Yet the ‘deliberation-decision’ dichotomy underlying all of this is overdrawn. For it contains within it an exaggerated notion of a decision as something which comes after all the talking has come to an end, as marking a ‘moment’ that constitutes a break in the flow of dialogue. This is because the reality is that time in no sense stops when a decision is taken: no decision is ever really final; even one’s application is something which can be debated.8 As Paul Ricœur once put it, ‘every judgement calls for a “but” beyond itself’ (Ricœur 2000:128). For what are such decisions if not interpretations of what must be done and, as HansGeorg Gadamer has pointed out, ‘conclusive interpretation simply does not exist’ (Gadamer 1997:146). Given this, I think we should recognise the following possibilities. In the best (patriotic) case, when a decision is arrived at through conversation and so reconciliation, it can be expected to lose its controversy and so fade into the background. More often than not, however, we must accept that there will be times when persons can be said to have arrived at a decision—when, that is, they indeed manage to do so—only because they have accepted the results of a vote, or because they have participated in the give-and-take of negotiations (their agreement taking the form of an accommodation rather than a genuine reconciliation) or, finally, because the state has taken a decision even though a minority (and even sometimes a majority) continues to disagree. Now, as regards such cases, it is indeed necessary to speak, at least to a degree, of coercion rather than dialogue. As Jocelyn Maclure has written, It is not a question of closing one’s eyes before that other moment in politics: the moment of decision and institutionalization (the one previous being that of deliberation). This is the moment—tragic but unavoidable— when injustices are committed and liberties restricted. Sooner or later, and in always imperfect circumstances, a decision must be taken. (Maclure 2000:214, my translation) Maclure’s evident negativity here—‘tragic but unavoidable’—smacks of pluralism, but he can nevertheless be said to share with the deliberative democrat the sense that the ‘moment’ of decision is something which must be sharply distinguished from that of dialogue. Once again, however, I believe it is a mistake to assume that this is a time when all discussion, all interpretation, has come to an end. After all, does not the debate often carry on after the decision is taken, with those on the losing end vowing to continue the struggle? This surely

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 145

influences implementation, as does the fact that new debates may erupt over that implementation, debates which will surely have been influenced by the previous, ostensibly completed one. Given all of this, we should accept that talk of some sharply distinct ‘moment’ of decision, one which asserts a clear break between dialogue on the one hand and coercive, wholly non-dialogical application on the other, is simply artificial. This leads me to call for a blurring, somewhat, of the deliberative democrat’s distinction between the domains of state and civil society. True, there may be more deliberating going on in the latter and more decision taking in the former, but when we appreciate that these two activities are not really all that different we have reason to assert that any line we might wish to draw to distinguish the two domains be ‘dotted’ rather than ‘solid’. And how are we to interpret the spaces in that line if not as indicative of the existence of a larger, potentially patriotic community within which both state and society are situated, namely, the polity as a civic or political community? (Blattberg 2000: ch.5). We can reach the same conclusion with a different challenge to the deliberative democrat’s way of distinguishing between state and society. This one has to do with how they tend to think the public sphere and the state ought to relate: the former, it is said, should ‘transmit’ its deliberations to the latter. Whatever this means, exactly, one thing certain is that it is not understood to consist of the kind of pure deliberation in search of the common good said to have its place within the public sphere. As Habermas writes, for example, the communicative power generated in the public sphere is to be ‘exercised in the manner of a siege’ (Habermas 1996:486–7) on the state. And Dryzek has expressed a worry that Habermas’ vision is not adversarial enough, his concern being that there is a threat of the ‘co-option’ of social movements by the state, one which leads him to go so far as to recommend that those in the public sphere work on behalf of the ‘insurgency’ of the state (Dryzek 2000: ch.4). Similarly, while Dryzek is willing to emphasise the public sphere’s discursive capacity to change the terms of political debate within the state, he nevertheless qualifies that this is discursive only in a Foucaultian and so non-communicative sense (Dryzek 2000:52). Habermas, however, as we have seen, writes of the public sphere’s ability to establish a certain context of discovery which can significantly influence those debates taking place amongst state agents, this leading him to assert that ‘in the discursively structured opinion—and will-formation of a legislature, lawmaking is interwoven with the formation of communicative power’ (Habermas 1996:162). At least in his case, then, it seems that we ought to conceive of the transmission of deliberations from civil society to the state as characterised by a mix of communicative and other, non-truth-seeking forms of discourse. And this is exactly how James Bohman sees it, Bohman specifying that ‘the debate mixes together argumentation, compromise, and bargaining, as well’ (Bohman 1996:175). There is a significant problem with this whole picture, however. It is that, practically speaking, such a mix is just not viable. For conversation is an

146 REPUBLICANISM

extremely fragile mode of dialogue; it can constitute a viableresponse to conflict only if all participating parties strive to thoroughly engage in the kind of tactful speaking and profound listening that it requires. One might say that, though disagreeing, the interlocutors in a conversation must consistently remain ‘opponents’ who are not also ‘adversaries’, which is to say that they must at all times struggle, as well as be seen to be struggling, together in the search for their common good.9 The slightest indication that one party or other has taken on an adversarial stance will induce the other(s) to become defensive and so undermine their capacity to listen, thus causing the conversation to break down. Conversation, then, just cannot be mixed with negotiation or any other form of adversarial discourse. While it is possible for adversarial interlocutors to, indirectly, learn things from their exchanges, and so it would be wrong to say that no reconciliation, no integration, could ever emerge from their encounter, it would still be a mistake to speak of genuine conversation here. ‘Mix’, then, is simply not a feasible characterisation of the deliberative democrat’s transmission mechanism. Given this, it should come as little surprise that, in deliberative democracy, no real reconciliation is possible, much less encouraged, between state and society; there is no sense in which citizens are encouraged to aim for the realisation of the civic, political community as a whole. Now while this will not induce much worry on the part of the deliberative democrat, the patriot would indeed complain. For can there never be times when we at least strive for a degree of reconciliation between the state and civil society? Only the (unwarranted) assumption that an impermeable border lies between them rules this out, conversation, as we have seen, requiring that there be at least some spaces in that line, some sharing between opponents to begin with. Recognising the existence of such spaces means that, depending on the issue being discussed, state-civil society conversations have the potential to realise much more than just ‘democracy’ strictly speaking. Thus does the patriot view democracy as only a part of good governance, as a feature of a larger whole—‘politics’—within which it is distinct from and yet to a degree integrated with other features of that whole. This means that, in those cases when negotiation has had to replace conversation as the best available option, there will be times when ‘the People’, as distinct from the respect for the individual, a concern for economic welfare, for the environment, and so on, get less of their due than do these other goods. And rightly so. III I want to conclude by pointing out that I consider this essay itself to be a contribution to a patriotic conversation. For my disagreement with deliberative democrats is an oppositional but not adversarial one, since it seems to me that all of us can be said to share a concern for the truth of the matter that is our subject here. A better understanding of conversation’s role in democratic politics is thus,

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 147

I would claim, a good which we hold in common. Moreover, even though this is a conversation which is limited to the bounds of civil society (for to my knowledge, few, if any, politicians have taken heed of it), I just cannot believe that many of its participants would prefer that any of the conclusions reached be pressed upon the state, as opposed to shaping that state and the society it governs in a way which could only happen if citizens and their representatives were convinced of rather than persuaded into accepting them. After all, if it was otherwise then we would be witnessing many more political thinkers participating in political advocacy groups than currently do so. Moreover, it is also worth recognising that academic conversations such as this one simply do not respect anything close to the rules of discourse theory. For one thing, they are certainly not open to all comers: books and journal articles are vetted by appointed readers before publication, and not all proposals for delivering papers at conferences are accepted. For another, there is today a whole school of political thought—namely, the postmodernist—whose contributions often consist of ironic wordplay and self-consciously contradictory assertions, and yet no one, I suspect, even those strongly disagreeing with the positions its adherents advance, would want to ban them from the discussion on the basis of some rule of discourse. In fact, many of those who do so disagree will quite happily point out that the approach in question has been interestingly critiqued by a parodic paper, one which had been submitted under false pretences to an academic journal which was nevertheless fooled into publishing it.10 Falsehood, they would thus have to admit, is indeed sometimes the way to truth. Finally, it should go without saying that the participants in these academic debates come to them from a variety of ideological persuasions. Not just liberalism, but conservatism, socialism, feminism, green ideology, nationalism— all these and more have their voices, liberalism’s being albeit the loudest amongst political thinkers today. Now it is, I would suggest, not despite but at least partly because of such differences that we can all be said to be involved in a lively conversation, one which, although thought by some to be aiming for theory, has certainly not been subject to the strictures of one. Because of this, it seems to me that most of us, whether aware of it or not, can be said to have been proceeding in a patriotic way. And a good thing, too. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Kai Nelsen and Alain Noël for their comments on previous versions of this essay NOTES 1. For an interesting account of the social usefulness of lying, one nevertheless sensitive to its potential abuses, see Campbell 2001.

148 REPUBLICANISM

2. I refer to ‘ideology’ here in a relatively non-pejorative way. To me, any doctrine meant to provide us with guidance as to how to respond to specific political conflicts, whether these concern questions of institutional design or everyday policy-making, is an ideology (Blattberg 2001). 3. A case for ‘deliberative opinion polls’ is made in Fishkin 1991. Joshua Cohen, however, is one deliberative democrat who writes of the beneficial role of parties, albeit not for the reason I am about to give here (Cohen 1997:85–6). John Uhr emphasises parties as well and so could also be considered an exception here, if not for the fact that his account, based as it is on a peculiar ‘proceduralist’ reading of Aristotle, should not be considered a version of deliberative democracy. The Australian, and so parliamentary, background to his approach thus comes as no surprise (Uhr 1998). 4. Works which call for more weight to be given to the democratic side of the balance include Habermas 1976; Fraser 1992; Bohman 1996: esp. ch.4; and Dryzek 2000; while a greater willingness to endorse liberal institutions can be found in Habermas 1996 and Bohman 1998. 5. Of course, arguments need to be made that show this, although it would take me too far afield to advance them here. For two such, see Blattberg 2003a,b. 6. For more on patriotic conversation, see Bickford 1996 and Blattberg 2000: ch.3. 7. It should be said that some deliberative democrats are more explicit about this than others. Samuel Freeman is particularly so (Freeman 2000:372–3). 8. Here the Habermasian would respond that we need to distinguish between ‘discourses of justification’ and ‘discourses of application’ (Habermas 1996:162), another distinction which, I would claim, is overdrawn. 9. On the distinction, see Blattberg 2003 c. 10. I am thinking, of course, of what has come to be known as the ‘Sokal Hoax’ (Editors of Lingua Franca 2000).

REFERENCES Arendt, H. 1959. The Human Condition: A Study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Anchor Edition. Aristotle. 1984. The Politics. Trans. Carnes Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Basu, S. 1999. ‘Dialogical ethics and the virtue of humour’. The Journal of Political Philosophy 4, 378–403. Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blattberg, C. 2000. From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. ‘Political philosophies and political ideologies’. Public Affairs Quarterly 3, 193–217. 2003a. ‘Humour and the global minimal moral code’. Unpublished paper (submitted to Inquiry). 2003b. ‘Revelation and the global minimal moral code’. Unpublished paper (submitted to Continental Philosophy Review). 2003c. ‘Opponents vs adversaries in Plato’s Phaedo’. Unpublished paper (submitted to Journal of the History of Ideas).

PATRIOTIC, NOT DELIBERATIVE, DEMOCRACY 149

Bickford, S. 1996. The Dissonance of Democracy: Listening, Conflict, Citizenship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bohman, J. 1996. Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1998. ‘The coming of age of deliberative democracy’. Journal of Political Philosophy 6/ 4, 399–423. Bohman J. & W.Rehg, eds. 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Buber, M. 1947a. Between Man and Man. Trans. R.G.Smith. Boston: Beacon Press. 1947b. ‘Dialogue’. Buber 1947a. 1970. I and Thou. Trans. W.Kaufmann. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Burke, P. The Art of Conversation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Campbell, J. 2001. The Liar’s Tale: A History of Falsehood. New York: W.W.Norton & Co. Calhoun, C. ed. 1992. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cervantes. 2000. The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Trans. J.Rutherford. London: Penguin Books. Chambers, S. 1996. Reasonable Democracy: Jürgen Habermas and the Politics of Discourse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Clarke S.G. & E.Simpson, eds. 1989. Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Cohen, J. 1997. ‘Deliberation and democratic legitimacy’. Bohman and Rehg 1997: 67–92. Cohen, J. & J.Rogers. 2003. ‘Power and reason’. Fung & Wright 2003:237–58. Dryzek, J.S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Editors of Lingua Franca. 2000. The Sokal Hoax: The Sham that Shook the Academy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Elster, J., ed.. 1998. Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fallico, A.B. & H.Shapiro, eds and trans. 1967. Renaissance Philosophy , vol.I, The Italian philosophers. New York: Random House. Fishkin, J. 1991. Democracy and Deliberation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fraser, N. 1992. ‘Rethinking the public sphere: a contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy’. Calhoun 1992:109–42. Freeman, S. 2000. ‘Deliberative democracy: a sympathetic comment.’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 4, 371–418. Fung, A. & E.O.Wright, eds. 2003. Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. New York: Verso. Furrow, D. 1995. Against Theory: Continental and Analytical Challenges in Moral Philosophy. New York: Routledge. Gadamer, H.-G. 1989. Truth and Method. 2nd ed . Trans. J.Weinsheimer & D.G.Marshall. New York: Crossroad. 1997. ‘Epilogue to “Who am I and who are you?"'. Heinemann & Krajewski 1997. Grenier, Y. 2001. From Art to Politics: Octavio Paz and the Pursuit of Freedom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gutmann, A. & D.Thompson.1996. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hampshire, S. 2000. Justice is Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

150 REPUBLICANISM

Habermas, J. 1976. Legitimation Crisis. Trans. T.McCarthy. London: Heinemann. 1982. ‘A reply to my critics’. Thompson & Held 1982:219–83. 1990. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Trans. C.Lenhardt & S. Weber Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Trans. W.Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heinemann, R. & B.Krajewski, eds & trans. 1997. Gadamer on Celan: ‘Who Am I and Who Are You?’ and Other Essays. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Levine, P. 1998. Living Without Philosophy: On Narrative, Rhetoric, and Morality. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Machiavelli, N. 1970. The Discourses. Ed. B.Crick, trans. L.J.Walker. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Maclure, J. 2000. Récits identitaires: Le Quebec à l'épreuve du pluralisme. Montreal: Quebec Amérique. Marx, K. 1975. ‘Contribution to the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of law’. Marx & Engels 1975: .3–129. Marx, K. & F.Engels.1975. Collected Works, vol. 3. NewYork: International Publishers. Mirandola, G.P.D. 1967. ‘Letter to Ermolao Barbaro’. Fallico & Shapiro 1967. Mitchell, J. 1842. The Art of Conversation. London. Nino, C.S. 1996. The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Przeworski, A. 1998. ‘Deliberation and ideological domination’. Elster 1998:140–60. Reiman, D.H. & S.B.Powers eds. 1977. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Ricœur, P. 2000. The Just. Trans. D.Pellaner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rose, A. 2001–2002. ‘When politics is a laughing matter’. Policy Review 110, 259–71. Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson & Co. Shelley, P.B. 1977. ‘ln defence of poetry’. Reiman & Powers 1977:478–508. Thompson, J.B. & D.Held, eds. 1982. Habermas: Critical Debates. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Uhr, J. 1998. Deliberative Democracy in Australia: The Changing Place of Parliament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Abstracts

Citizenship and the Roman Res publica: Cicero and a Christian Corollary ELIZABETH DEPALMA DIGESER Throughout the history of the Empire, Romans defined a republic as a community of citizens bound together by justice and common interest. When justice no longer flourishes, then tyranny supplants the republic. An analysis of two responses to the res publica in crisis, the former by Cicero, during the last decades of Senatorial rule in the first century BCE, the latter by Lactantius, during the Great Persecution (299–313), illustrates not only the demands that such a definition placed upon citizens and government alike, but also the remarkable continuity in Roman political thought. On Public Speech in a Democratic Republic at War BARRY S.STRAUSS What sort of public speech is appropriate for a republic at war? At any time, public speech in a republic should be clear, simple, rational, and focused on the public interest. In the heat of war, the speaker must be not merely moral, but cunning; he should employ a rhetoric that is restrained and unemotional, realistic and hard-headed, yet also decent and principled. The study of Thucydides, particularly of his so-called Mytilenian Debate, underlines this lesson. Montesquieu: Critique of Republicanism? CÉLINE SPECTOR The singular position of Montesquieu’s political philosophy seems to raise the question: Isn’t the opposition between republicanism and liberalism a largely artificial one? On the one hand, the description of the republican vivere civile in the Spirit of the Laws testifies to the important ties that exist between Montesquieu and the tradition of ‘civic humanism’. However, this apparent theoretical proximity between Montesquieu and the

152 REPUBLICANISM

British Neo-Harringtonians ought not to be taken too far, obscuring the deep divergences that differentiate their respective positions, notably when it comes to the interpretation of history. Montesquieu’s break from the republican tradition is exemplified by his rejection of its conception of freedom rooted in the citizens’ necessary participation in power. But in the end, this does not enable us to conclude that he subscribes to a purely liberal theory. The British model shows that even if direct participation in the exercise of power is not necessary for the existence of liberty, a certain level of civic involvement and public awareness is needed. The liberal opposition between positive and negative liberty, political autonomy and enjoyment of rights without interference must therefore be transcended. The Twilight of the Republic? JEAN-FABIAN SPITZ This essay treats the idea specific to the French republican culture, where the state does not oppose individual freedom, but rather makes it possible. It tries to assess and defend this idea using philosophical and historical arguments on the nature of democracy and the meaning of freedom. If liberty requires some sort of equality that goes beyond equality of rights, the state is a necessary component for freedom whenever equality is not simply given, but gained in opposition to private and non-private domination. Discourse Theory and Republican Freedom PHILIP PETTIT This essay outlines some of the main issues that arise in the theory of freedom and, in particular, those that divide the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference from the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. It goes on to explore the idea that discourse theory provides reasons for favouring the republican conception. Discourse theory is taken for these purposes to be a theory that subsumes, but goes beyond decision theory. It accepts the decision-theoretic view that human agents are moved by beliefs and desires that, on the whole, are rationally maintained and rationally issued in action. But it adds the further, crucial assumption that human beliefs and desires are shaped under the transformative influence of discursive argument and exchange. Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom CHARLES LARMORE Freedom has a number of different senses. One of them is the absence of domination, which neo-republican thinkers have helped us to understand

ABSTRACTS 153

better. This notion of freedom does not, however, provide an alternative to political liberalism, since its proper articulation depends on distinctly liberal principles. Non-Domination as a Moral Ideal CHRISTIAN NADEAU In this article, I wish to show the importance of the consequentialist method for the realisation of the ideal of non-domination. If, as stated by Philip Pettit, consequentialist ethics helps to better conceive republican political institutions, we then have to see how the fundamental principles of republican liberty can meet the norms traditionally associated with consequentialism. After a brief presentation of consequentialism and republican liberty (as Pettit defines it), I criticize the idea that liberty as non-domination could be included in a bundle of goods that we seek to maximize. Next, I argue that we should reject the maximization of liberty as non-domination when this concept is considered as an absolute. Finally, I explore the idea of liberty as a condition for other goods, where liberty is still taken in the republican sense. These three theses are all rejected by demonstrating that the maximization of republican liberty is not really the maximization of liberty itself, but the maximization of protections granted to the individuals with the aim of defending their liberty. The Cosmopolitan Scope of Republican Citizenship RYOA CHUNG This essay aims to show that republicanism does not necessarily preclude the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship. The first part challenges the belief that republican citizenship must be tied to a nationalist reading, therefore reducing its cosmopolitan extension to a mere metaphor. Having argued that the political attributes and philosophical account of the notion of citizenship evolve according to the historical transformation of political communities, our contemporary era renders the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship plausible. Far from being irreconcilable, liberal cosmopolitanism has much to gain from republicanism since a thorough analysis of globalization reveals the limitations of the traditional liberal understanding of electoral and representative democracy. The second part of this article suggests that the republican theory of contestatory democracy enables us to better define the political attributes of cosmopolitan citizenship within a liberal conceptual framework. Patriotic, Not Deliberative, Democracy CHARLES BLATTBERG

154 REPUBLICANISM

Given the concern they share for the common good, both patriotic and deliberative conceptions of democracy can be said to have roots in classical republicanism. But these two modern approaches to politics are not the same. In order to show this, as well as demonstrate patriotism’s superiority to deliberative democracy, I offer four criticisms of the latter: (i) its support of a theory or systematic set of procedures for conversation distorts its practice; (ii) it is ideologically biased; (iii) its distinction between conversation and negotiation is overstated; and (iv) its conception of the political community, in particular, of the proper relations between the state and civil society, is impoverished. The essay concludes with the suggestion that the debate in political philosophy between patriots and deliberative democrats is itself an exemplification of patriotic, rather than deliberative, conversation.

Notes on Contributors

Charles Blattberg is Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal. His most recent book is Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003) published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. He is also the author of From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First (2000), a critique of value pluralism in ethics and politics published by Oxford University Press. Ryoa Chung is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Université de Montréal. She teaches ethics and political philosophy, with her principal field of research in the ethics of international relations. Her most recent works include ‘Dominition and destitution in a global world’, to be published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2004). Elizabeth DePalma Digeser is Associate Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal. Specializing in Roman History, she published The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome in 2000. Charles Larmore is Chester D.Tripp Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of such books as Morals of Modernity (1996), The Romantic Legacy (1996), Modernité et Morale (1993), and Patterns of Moral Complexity (1987). Christian Nadeau is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Université de Montréal. Specializing in the history of philosophy, he is the author of Le vocabulaire de Saint-Augustin (2001) and has published a number of articles on Machiavelli, Bodin, Charron, Jean de Silhon and Augustinianism. His research interests lie in ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of law. Philip Pettit teaches political theory and philosophy at Princeton University, where he is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics. He is author of a number of books, including A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency (2001) and Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997). His most recent book is a collection of previously published pieces: Reasons, Rules, and Norms: Selected Essays (2002).

156 REPUBLICANISM

Céline Spector is maître de conférence of Philosophy at the Université de Bordeaux 3, France. She works on political philosophy and the eighteenth century (Montesquieu, Rousseau). Jean-Fabien Spitz is Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. His work underscores the essential role of the history of ideas in understanding political modernity. He is the author of La liberté politique, essai de généalogie conceptuelle (1995), Bodin et la souveraineté (1998), L’amour de l’égalité (2000) and John Locke et les fondements de la liberté moderne (2001). Barry S.Strauss is Professor of History and Classics at Cornell University. He is the author of a number of books including Athens after the Peloponnesian War (1986), Fathers and Sons in Athens (1993) and The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and their Lessons for Modern Strategists (with Josiah Ober, 1990). His most recent book is Salamis, the Greatest Naval Battle of the Ancient World, 480 B.C., which will appear in 2004. Daniel Weinstock is Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political Philosophy and is the Director of the Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal. Among his most recent published works are The antinomy of language policy’, in W.Kymlicka & A.Patten, eds, Political Theory and Language Policy (2003) and ‘Constitutionalizing the right to secede’ in The Journal of Political Philosophy (2001).

Index

A Doll’s House, 88 A Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism see Rawls abstract rules, 4 academics, 26 accomodation, 168 Ackerman, Bruce, 61 action(s): 72, 82, 84; coercive, collectively authorised, 77; communicative, 166; self-determined, 89; theory of, 140 Actium, Battle of 10 Adison, 47 Aeneid see Vergil aequitas see equity Aeropagyte, 40 agrarian laws, 40, 41 Alexander, 26 Allen, Danielle, 32 ambition, 42 America: experience of republicanism, 39; governing circles in, 57; urban ghetto, 24 see also United States amor laudis see Rome, pre-Christian, love of praise ancient: constitution, 67; history, 46; model, reverence and awe for, 46; republican model, 39; simplicity, admirers of, 46 ancients: distance from moderns, 43;

liberty of the, 101, 109 androcentrism, 33 Anglo-American: culture, 55; philosophical liberalism, 57, 58; political thought, 56; temper/individualism, 3 Anglo-Americans, 56 Anglo-Saxon: conception of politics, 57; model of politics, 59; model, compared to French, 60; philosophy, 59; republican model, 66 antiquity: 23; notions of, 68 Antony, Mark, 10 arbitrary: differences, 57; dominating power, 128; domination, 127; interference, 78, 79, 88, 99, 113, 120, 122; power, 78, 91, 93, 117, 124, 126, 127, 128; power, republican line on exposure to, 92; will, 109, 116 Archidamos, king of Sparta, 27 Arendt, Hannah, 2, 24, 25, 28, 101; Eichmann in Jerusalem, 25; The Origin of Totalitarianism, 25 Arginusae, 30 Aristeides the Just, 27 aristocracy, 29, 40, 44 aristocratic: 157

158 REPUBLICANISM

families, 67; liberty, 67; society, 60 Aristophane, 27, 30, 31; Frogs, 30 Aristotle: 26, 27, 28, 32; phronesis (practical wisdom), 4, 164 Aristotelian: heritage, 40; phronesis, 4, 164 armies, permanent, 46 arms, ownership of, 38 Asia: 13; west, 26 assembly (ekklesia), 16 association(s): 112; civil, 56; contractual, 56; private, 56 Athenagoras, 27 Athenian: assembly, 28, 33; citizens, 24; citizens, political participation of, 24; classical literature, 26; (common) people, 27, 29, 31, 32; culture, 33; democracy, 2, 23, 29, 32; envoys, 28; history, 23; metic (resident alien), 24; ‘new politicians’, 32; oligarchs (the Thirty), 30; oratory, 32; slaves, 30 Athenians, 28, 31 see also Athenian, citizens; Athenian, (common) people Athens: 2, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 45; ancient, 32; as degenerate democracy, 22–3; assembly attendance, 24; civic festival, 24; civil war, 26; classical, 22; communitarianism, 23; drama in, 24; equality, 23;

jury pool, 24; liberty, 23; mob rule, 23; naval service, 24; nineteenth-century critique of, 22; plague, 27; poor citizens of, 24; republican regime, 34; social breakdown, 27; the Council, 24 Attic orators, 32 Atticus, 9 Auden, W.H., 31 Augustan polemic, 48 Augustine, 19; City of God, 19 Augustus (Octavian), 10, 13; and Saturn, 13 Austin, John, 109 autonomy: 87; affirmation of, 121; concept of, 147; Kantian notion of, 145; principle of, 150; rational, 97; right of, 147 balance of power, 51 bank credit, 47 bargaining: 155, 156, 162; fair and unfair, 164 Baron, H., 38 basic needs, satisfaction of, 107 Basu, Sammy, 157 Bayes, tradition of, 82 Bayesian: picture, the: 83; theories, 83 Bayesianism, 83 Beijing Conference on Women, 140 belief(s): 72–93; false, 75 believers, 84, 85 Beltway Bandits, 28 benefits: rational, 48; tangible, 48

INDEX 159

Bentham, Jeremy, 80, 98, 99, 108, 109, 110 Berlin, Isaiah: 1, 39, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 108, 109, 121; ‘Two concepts of liberty’, 1 Betic people, 47 Blattberg, Charles, 4 body politic, 41, 44 Bohman, James, 136, 137, 152, 169 Bolingbroke: 49–50; analysis of freedom, 51; Craftsman, 50 Britain, 159 British: commercial society, 50; constitution, and the partisan system, 49–52; debate on power, 39; government, 50; humanist model, break from, 51; model, the, 49; mores, 48; Neo-Harringtonians, 43; people, 51; political life, 50 broad power, 122 Buber, Martin, 161 Buzan, 147 Caesar, Julius, 9, 10 Caesarians, the, 10 Cairo Conference on Population Control, 140 Canada, 159 Caracalla, edict of citizenship, 16 Carthage, 42 Carus, 13 Cato, 48 censors, 40 censorship, 40 centralisation, 146 challenges, political, religious and military, 10 chance, 57 charity, hermeneutical interpretive, 4 choice(s): 65, 72, 76; bundle of, 128; constraints on, 77;

costs imposed on, 72; hindrances to, 73, 78, 87; interpersonal modes of hindering, 76; limited, 78; moral, 125; rational, 63, 165; undominated, 123; variation in hindrance, 75 (figure); wide range of, 77 choice set, 75 Christian: authors, 15; community, 16; emperor(s), 11, 19; law, 15, 16, 17; law, in Roman terms, 14; law, perspective on natural, 14; law, romanisation of, 14; republic, framework for ideal, 12; res publica, 15; Roman empire, citizens of, 17; state, and the, 19 Christianity: 10, 18; becomes Rome’s only legal religion, 19 Christians: 5, 15, 16, 18; and citizenship, 17; Roman citizenship, stripped of, 17; Roman empire, within, 15; state, ostracised from the, 18 Chugn, Ryoa, 4 Church, the, 67 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 2, 5–20, 30; and Lactantius, 1; ‘Christian Cicero’, 20; constitutional treatises, 5, 10; De re publica, 9; De legibus, 9; definition of republicanism, 2; definition of res publica, 9; discussion of Verres’ case, 5- 6 see Verrine Orations; Partitiones oratoriae, 14; political writings, 1; Verrine Orations, 19 Ciceronian: heritage, 40;

160 REPUBLICANISM

humanists, 41 citizen(s): 2, 5, 8, 10, 19, 26, 32, 40. 41. 42. 44. 51, 58, 61, 63, 115; affirm autonomy, 121; Athenian, 24; Athenian, political participation of, 24; autonomy, 38; challenge government’s decisions, 116; common, 64; double role of the, 150; duties of, 17; equally submitted to the law, 54; equals, should be treated as, 62; freedom of the, 55; interdependence of, 52; interest in non- domination, 59; interest of the individual, 39; interests and opinions of, 55; liberty of, 6; lives of, 65; military ardour in, 22; modern, 63; obedience of, 10; obligations of, 9, 18; political participation, 51; poor of Athens, 24; protected from arbitrary abuse, 45; reactivating liberty, 128; relationship with res publica, 19; republic, participation in, 23, 25; republican, 4, 12; responsibilities of, 5, 10; rights of, 5, 7, 19, 62, 147; rights and duties, 10; rights and duties, equal, 67; rights and freedoms of, 6; rights, protection of, 45; roles of, 10; Roman, 6, 15; Roman, 6, 7, 8; society of equal, 68; sovereign power, 149–50; votes, 149; will of private, 61; see also citizenship citizen-soldier: 22; ideal of, 39; see also soldier-citizen

citizenship: 16, 17, 28, 52; and ‘worth’, 7; and Christians, 17; and cult, 16; and ethnicity, 7; and health of the republic, 8; and rights, 7; and status, 7; Christians stripped of Roman, 17; cosmopolitan, 4, 136, 137, 144; democratic, 136, 139; democratic, evolving notion of, 152; differentiated, 138; duties of, 8; global, 136, 145, 147; good, 22; good, and public religious observance, 18; Greek concept of, 7; national, 138; notion of, 139; obligations of, 16, 17; passive conception of, 137; plural, 138; privileges of, 4, 16; republican and nationalism, 137–44; republican conception of, 4, 138, 141, 142, 143, 151; responsibilities of, 4; rights of, 4, 8; Roman, 15, 16; theory of, 136; unites all Romans, 7; world, 137, 157 see also citizen(s) City of God see Augustine city, modern, industrial, 24 city-state(s), 22, 24 civic: action, 24; associations, 24; humanism: 38, 40, 45, 46; humanism, Neo-Harrington, in England, 38; humanists, 23; involvement, 51; life, 40; obligations, 10, 12;

INDEX 161

practices, 41; rights, 7; virtue, 24, 38, 39, 53, 103, 121, 144; virtue, republican insistence on, 2; virtues, pivotal function in neorepublican theories, 142; republican, 143; watchfulness, 52 civil: associations, 56; authorities, 50, 129; freedom, 99; law(s), 11, 129; liberty, 54; society, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 67, 69, 159, 160, 165, 169, 170; society, domain of, 166, 168; society, independent, 66; society, transnational, 150; society, versus monarchy, 68; sphere, 58 civil rights movement, 140 classical: culture, 33; republicans, 23 Clear and Simple as Truth see Thomas and Turner Cleon, 2, 27, 32, 33, 34; speech on Mytileneans, 33 collateral damage, 79 collective: action, 138; decisions, 62; deliberation, 115; existence, 62; rights, 146 commandments, 14; first, 14 commerce: 38, 44, 49, 52; development of, 44, 47 ; ‘doux commerce’, 49; justice of, 53; liberty of, 53; mixing with virtue, 46; Montesquieu’s defence of, 52; rise of, 42 commercial: exchanges, 52;

society, 52; television, 25 common: awareness, 92; benefit, 44; duties, 68; existence, 62; freedom, 68; good (communione utilitatis): 2, 9, 10, 22, 57, 141, 143, 155, 163, 165, 169; good, as virtue, 52; good, conceptions of, 139; good, loss of, 142; interest(s), 5, 55, 61, 63, 79, 92, 114, 116; lot, 67; memory, 24; people: 29; people, Athenian, 29; responsibilities, 138; rules, 41; sense, 83, 84, 158, 164 commonwealth, 9 communication: 22, 28, 29, 31; communities, 137; free and equal, 32 communications markets, closed, 28 communione utilitatis see common good communitarianism, 1, 136, 137, 143 community: 54; concept of, 147; dialogical, 137; involvement, 53; political, 16 see also communication, communities compromises, 58, 67, 77 concepts, 1 conceptual alternatives, 3 Congress, see United States, Congress Connor, W.R., 31, 32 conscience, 102 consensu iuris see justice, agreement regarding consent: 116; principle of, 149 consequences: best, 125;

162 REPUBLICANISM

just, 125 consequentialism, 3, 120, 124, 125, 129, 134; and Philip Pettit, 3; and republican freedom, 125–9; and republicanism, 4; moral framework of, 132 consequentialist approach, 124–5, 128, 134 consequentialist ethics, 120, 134 consequentialist principle: 124, 125, 128; criticism of in context of liberty as nondomination, 129–32 consequentialists: 3; traditional theses of, 131 conservatism, 57, 171 conservatives, German, 25 Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence see Montesquieu conspicuous consumption, 42 Constant, Benjamin, 24, 52, 59, 109, 110 Constantine I: 19; first Christian emperor, 11; good government of, 12–13; restored justice, 13 constitution, the: 9, 43, 45, 64; ancient, 43, 67; English mixed, 67 constitutional: democracy: 62, 63; democracy, account of, 61; democracy, Dworkian conception of, 64; heritage, 62; monarchy, 39, 46; partriotism, 143; politics, 62, 63; regime, 23; treatises, Cicero, 10 constitutionalism, 63 contemporary: democracy, 63; political thought, 87; politics, 23; social thought, 87; thought, 81, 82 contestability, 116 contestatory democracy, 4, 117, 148–51;

and Phillip Pettit, 4 contract, social, 68 contractual associations, 56 contractualist tradition, 148 conversation: 4, 155, 156, 158, 159, 163, 164, 167, 169; as on-going process, 4; genuine, 160, 170; patriotic, 158, 163; philosophical account of, 162; political, 166 Corcyra, 28 Corinth, 28 corporal punishment, 6 corruption, 50 cosmopolitan: citizenship: 4, 136, 137, 144; citizenship, compatibility with republicanism, 4; democracy, 145, 146, 148, 150; democracy, and differentiated sovereignty, 145–8; ; democracy theory, 145, 147; ideal, 136; ideal, global scale, ideal of liberal allegiance, 136; 142; public culture, 140; republicanism, 152 cosmopolitanism: institutional, 142, 144-51, 148; liberal, 137, 138, 142, 144, 149; republican, 144 cosmopolitans, liberal, 142 cost(s): 72, 75, 76, 79; choice-hindering, 74; cultural processes, 74; current, 78; economic processes, 74; experiential, 73, 78; freedom-relevant hindrances, imposed by, 76; non-persons, imposed by, 75; interpersonal, 75; material, 74; physical, 74; physically obstructive, 73; prospective, 78; psychologically inhibiting, 73;

INDEX 163

real, 73, 78; situational, 74; social, 74 Council of Ministers, 151 country: love of, 43; problematic, 48 Country Party, 43, 47 court, the, 42 courtiers, subservient nature of, 46 cowardice, 42 Craftsman see Bolingbroke Crassus, 9 credence function, 83 credence(s): 83, 84, 92; unconditional, 83 credit: 38; bank, 47; English fantasies of, 49; expansion of, 49; personification of, 47; public, 46–9; system, 46; transformation into confidence, 49 creditors, professional, 47 crimes, private, 41 crowd, the, 28 crown, the, 67, 159 crucifixion, 6, 7, 8 cult (religio): 14, 28; and citizenship, 16; Roman, 16, 17 cultural: homogeneity, 142; identity, 139, 141, 142 culture: Athenian, 33; classical, 33 custom(s): 40, 41, 67, 69; communal, 41; good, 40; notions of, 68 customary order, 41 Dagger, Richard 136, 147 Daia, Maximin, 17; persecution of Christians, 17;

see also Great Persecution; persecution Danube, 10 Darwinism: conservative social, 66; social, 57 De legibus see Cicero De re publica see Cicero death penalty, 28 debate, 3 debt: abolition of, 47; public, 46, 47, 48 decentralisation, 146 Decian persecutions, see Decius decision(s), 82 decision making, 4, 24 decision theory, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89 decision-theoretic: agency, 72; functioning, 88; ideal, 87–9; image, 73, 82–3, 87, 88; image, of human subject(s), 84, 86, 89; subject, 88; subject, human agent as, 72 decision-theoretically rational, 93 Decius, 18; Decian persecutions, 16; see also Great Persecution; persecution Declaration of Human Rights, 151 Defoe, Daniel, 42 deliberation: 4; conception of, 4, 157; ‘patriotic’, 4 deliberation-decision dichotomy, 167 demagogue, 32 demagoguery, 32 demagogy, 64 democracy: 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 40, 41, 44, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 64; anarchist tendencies in, 40; ancient Greek, 22; and freedom, 102; Athenian, 29, 32; Athens, 2; constitutional, 62, 63;

164 REPUBLICANISM

constitutional account of, 61; constitutional, Dworkian conception of, 64; contemporary, 61, 63; contestory, 4, 117, 148–51; contestory, and Phillip Pettit, 4; cosmopolitan, 145, 146, 148, 150; cosmopolitan, and differentiated sovereignty, 145–8; cosmopolitan, theory of, 145, 147; definition of, 60, 62; deliberative, 4, 149, 156, 159, 161, 165, 167, 170; deliberative, conception of, 155; deliberative, republican use of, 4; deliverative, powers, 40; Dworkian version of, 63; electoral, 149; French model of, 60; global, 136; idea of, 101; just, 170; liberal, 136, 139, 141, 149, 160; liberal theory of, 148; majoritarian account of, 61; modern, 24, 52, 60, 63; nature of, 59; radical, 25; the ‘nature’ of, 40; representative, 149; theories of, 139; traditional liberal conceptions of, 152; western, 25 Democracy’s Discontent see Sandler democrat(s): 2; deliberative, 2, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 170; deliberative, liberal, 161 see Gutmann, Amy; Thompson Dennis democratic: citizenship, 136, 139; citizenship, evolving notion of, 152; deliberative theory, republican use of, 4; individuals, 61; liberty, 9;

mentality, 25; modern life, 57; orator, 32; politics, 57, 64; republic, 33; republic, theory of, 22; republicans, 29; rhetoric, 29; rhetorician, 31; self-government, 104, 108; societies, 58; states, 56 demographic decline, 45 demokratia, 23, 24 demos, 160, 165 deontological theories, 4 dépôt des mœurs see mores, depository of the desire(s): 72–93; fulfillment of, 98 despotism: 49; transition from monarchy to, 46 dialogical community, 137 dialogue: 168, 169; non-coercive, 156 dictatorships, 25 differentiated citizenship, 138 differentiated sovereignty theory, 152; and cosmopolitan democracy, 145–8 Digeser, Elizabeth, 1, 2, 3 Diocles see Diocletian Diocletian (Diocles), 13, 16, 17, 18; and the Great Persecution, 15, 17; persecution, edicts of, 17 Diodotean wisdom, 2, 35 Diodotus: 2, 27, 33, 34, 35; speech on Mytileneans, 33, 35 Dionysus, 31 Discourse/Discorsi see Machiavelli discourse: 84; adversarial, 169 discourse theory, 3, 72, 90, 165 discourse-theoretic: agency, 72–3; ideal, 89–93; image, 73, 84–7, 91 discursive: image of human agency, 91;

INDEX 165

influence, 90; practice, 90; responsibility, 91; status, 90, 91, 92, 93 discussion, 3 distributive justice, 141 Divine Institutes see Lactantius divine law: 14, 17, 18; Christian conception of, 15; institutions, 11 domestic, 81 dominated, 131 dominating, 131 dominatio, 79 domination: 69, 79, 102, 105, 107, 116, 120, 121, 123, 124, 128; absence of, 105, 109, 110, 115; ambiguity of, 132; and respect, 112–17; arbitrary, 127; individuals’ defence against, 59; language of, 133; private, 54, 57, 58, 59, 69, 70; relation of power, 132; society without, 114, 117 ; the idea of, 122 Domville, 50 Dryzek, John, 166–7, 169 duties, 112 ‘doux commerce’ (gentle commerce) see Montesquieu, Esprit de Lois duties: common, 68; equal, 67; of citizens, 17; political, 50; religious, 10 Dworkian: conception of constitutional democracy, 64; version of democracy, 63 Dworkin, Ronald, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 East, the, 16, 17 Eastern Europe, 25 eaves (stillicidiis), law on, 11 economic:

circumstances, 4; decline, 45; rationality, 81 education: 12, 58; publicly funded, 54; unequal access to, 54 Eichmann in Jerusalem, 25 eighteenth century, 2, 38, 39, 80, 102 ekklesia see assembly electoral representation: 152; to contestatory democracy, 148–51 elite, new of merit and money, 43 emperors: 16; Christian, 19; persecuting Christians, 17; rule of, 5; third-century, 187 empire(s): decline of, 45; outside borders of Roman, 6; Roman, 7, 15, 16, 17 England: 46, 49, 50, 51, 57, 69; Augustan polemic in, 48; decadence of, 43; eighteenth-century, 48; expansion of credit in, 49; Neo-Harrington continuation of tradition of civic humanism, 38; nineteenth-century, 23 English commonwealthmen, 105 English: mixed constitution, 67; republicanism, 39 English-speaking world: 1, 69; conditions of freedom, 69 Enlightenment: 22; social philosophy of, 52 entrepreneurs, 115 Eolius, 47 equal duties, 67 equality: 28, 29, 54, 57, 59, 70, 107; abuses against, 59; and freedom, 60; as non-domination, 55; connection to liberty, 64; in Dworkian sense, 65; more robust, 66; of individuals, 161;

166 REPUBLICANISM

of opportunity, 54, 59, 66; of power, 55; of resources, 54, 65, 66; of rights, 54–5; of wealth, 41; political, 26; preventing freedom, 66; public action in favour of, 65 equity (aequitas), 11, 14, 15, 18 Esprit des Lois see Montesquieu Essay Concerning Human Understanding see Locke ethical community, 165 ethics: 164; consequentialist, 120, 134; virtue, 124 ethnic homogeneity, 142 Eucrates, 27 Eumaios, 29 eunomia, 41 Europe: 50; early modern, 101 European: parliament, 151; states, 44, 46; Union, 146, 151 Eurykleia, 29 evidence, 83 evil, 15 Exodus (Old Testament), 14 factions, 39, 57, 61, 64 Falk, Richard, 142 Farrar, Cynthia, 31, 33 federation, 139 feminism, 171 feminist movement, 140 Fenelon, and the Duke’s party in France, 43 finance: 38, 44, 49; rise of, 42 financial: instruments, invention of, 47; revolution, 38, 47; system, 49; system, new, 47 Finley, M.I., 32

Fish, Stanley, 28 flogging, 6 Florentine pre-Renaissance, 40 focus groups, 28 folk psychology, 83 force, 18 foreign: republics, 8; states/kingdoms, 8 fortuna, 38, 47 fortune, 42, 77 fourteenth century, 38 fourth century, 10, 18, 19 fragmentation, 146 France: absolutist and authoritarian past, 56; expansion of credit in, 49; Fenelon and the Duke’s party in, 43; pre- revolutionary, 66, 69 free: association, 102; enterprise, 56; individual, and power, 69; individuals, 69; institutions, 52 ; nation, the, 51; riders, 141; riding, 141; society, 50, 56, 65, 102; will (voluntas), 19 ‘free nation’, singularity of, 48 freedom: 1, 2, 6, 8, 24, 25, 44, 50, 55, 64, 68, 73, 77, 87, 88, 99, 121, 123; and distribution of power, 44–5; and equality, 60; as non-domination, 3, 4, 58, 72, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87, 91; and democracy, 102; and liberty, 100; and pluralism, 103; and self-government, 100–3; as non-domination, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 107, 111, 120; as non- interference, 3, 72, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 87, 91, 101, 111, 115, 116; as part of bundle of goods, 130; Bolingbroke’s analysis of, 51; by public intervention, 55;

INDEX 167

by the law, 56; civil, 99; common, 64; common notion of, 80; compromised, 78; conception of, liberal, 82; conception of, republican, 82, 91; conceptions of, 3; conditioned, 77, 79, 93; conditions of, 69; enjoyment of, 52; French idea of, 59; French reflection on, 70; from public intervention, 55; from state intervention, 56; from the law, 56; Hobbesian, 108, 111, 112; in liberal tradition, 110; in various meanings, 117; individual, 52, 54, 59, 60, 66, 70, 98, 123, 147; individuals and the law, 56; liberal conception of, 3; love of, 48; meaning of, 60; modern, 60; normative, 65; of the people, 93; of the press, 50; of the citizen, 55; maximisation of, 126; negative, 98, 99, 110, 123, 141; neo- republican discussions of, 104; opposition to equality, 65; people’s, 44; personal, 60; political, 44, 46, 49, 57, 98, 103, 117; political, value of, 111; politically relevant notion, 77; positive, 97, 100, 104; prevented by equality, 66; problem of, 66; public, 46; reduced, 76; reduction of, 77; rejection of republican conception of, 44; republican, 134;

republican, and consequentialism, 1259; republican conception of, 3, 103, 106, 107, 115; spirit of, 50; unity with law, 110; vs law, 109 freedoms: 2; communicative, 25; of Roman citizens, 6 French: absolutist past, 59; democracy, model of, 60; historians, 54; freedom, idea of, 59; freedom, reflection on, 70; model of republic, critique of, 60; model of republic, compared to AngloSaxon model of republic, 60; monarchy, 51; national political culture, 54; people, 60; philosophers, 54; political culture, 55, 56, 60; political society, 67; political theorists, 54; political tradition, 55; republican canon, 3; republican model, 56, 58, 60, 63; republican tradition, 59; republican politics, concept of, 57; republicanism, 3; republicanism, conception of, 3, 70; revolution, 54; revolutionary model, 56 Frogs (Aristophane), 30 frugality, 41 function, 83 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 167 Galerius, 11, 13, 16, 18; and the Great Persecution, 15, 17; attempt to repeal edicts of persecution, 17; edict of 311, 17; persecution, edicts of, 17 Gavius, Publius of Consa, 6, 8;

168 REPUBLICANISM

betrayed by Verres’ supporters, 6; claim to citizenship, 7; fled to Messana, 6 general: interest, 55, 57; will, 54, 55, 57, 63; will, and rights, 62 German conservatives, 25 Germanic peoples, 10 Germany: 159; authoritarian and totalitarian past, 25 Gladstone, William, 23 Global: citizenship, 136, 145, 147; democracy, 136; distributive justice, 147; goods, 140; governance, 135, 144, 145; harms, 140; information and discussion, 140; justice, 135, 142, 144; order, 135; public, 142; social cooperation, 135 globalisation, 135, 136, 139, 140, 145, 146, 148, 149 glory, 24, 42 God, 9, 14, 15, 17, 18 God’s law, 16 gods, 16, 18; of res publica, 16; Roman, 15 good: the, 63, 115, 124, 143; common, 9, 10, 22, 57; conceptions of the, 2; human, 3, 102; intentions, and just laws, 133; life, the, 25, 29, 53; life, conceptions of, 116; morals, 50; mores, 43; plural conceptions of, 139; traded for other goods, 3 see also goods goods: 125, 130, 163; bundle of, 126;

bundle of, and maximising liberty, 129– 30; choosing between, 127–8; global, 140; human, 106; imaginary, 47, 48; irrational, 48; legitimate, 3; maximisation of, 125; real, 47; secondary, 131 goodwill: 114; of the powerful, 114 governance: democratic global, 150; global, 144, 145 government: the, 4, 5, 50 81, 92; big, 56; dependent on creditors, 47; different types of, 40, 45; form of, 2; intervention, 115; legitimate, 15; nature and principle of, 40; non-arbitrary, 92; obligations of, 9; participation of the people in, 41; popular, 44; ultimate goal of, 129–30; virtue of a, 48; world, 135, 136, 145, 147 governors, 8 Great Persecution, 5, 10, 16, 18; see also persecution Grecians, 23 Greco-Roman community, 16 Greece: ancient, 23; legacy of ancient, 23; political men of, 44; war and rhetoric, 22 greed, 42 Greek: ancient democracy, 22; concept of citizenship, 7; polis, 101; tyrants, 25 Greeks, 26

INDEX 169

green ideology, 171 Grote, George, 23, 32 Guicciardini, 23 guilds, 67 Gutmann, Amy, 2 Habermas, Jürgen: 2, 24, 25, 156, 157, 158, 161, 164, 167, 169; and deliberative democracy, 4; The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 25 harms, global, 140 healthcare: 129, 151; publicly funded, 54 Held, David, 136, 140, 145, 148 heritage, constitutional, 62 hermeneutical: interpretive charity, 4; paradigms, 38 Hermocrates, 27 ‘hidden hand’ mechanisms, 3 see also ‘invisible hand’, the hierarchical society, 67 hierarchy: 43; ‘natural’, 42 hindrances: freedom-relevant, 76, 77; psychological, 88; situational, 88; to choice, 72, 74, 78, 87 historians: imperial, 10; French, 54; Tory, 43 history: 67, 69; interpretation of, 43 Hitler, Adolf, 31 Hobbes, Thomas: 98, 99, 100, 109, 110; idea of freedom, 108; Leviathan, 101; writings, 108 hoi polloi (‘the many’), 24 Homer, 29 honour, 29, 32, 46, 49, 51 hope, 11 House of Commons, 43, 50, 67 House of Lords, 43, 50, 67

human: activity, 1; excellence, 63; good(s), 3, 106; law, 14; nature, 47; psychology, 84; human rights: 146; rights, universal, 150–1; subject, 89; subject, decision- theoretic image of, 89 human agency: 82, 87; decision-theoretic, 72; discourse-theoretic, 72–3; discursive image of, 91; image(s) of, 72, 93; two ideals of, 94 (figure); two images of, 86 (figure) human agent(s): 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90; as decision-theoretic subject, 72; Bayesian image of, 83; conceptions of freedom in, 72; discursive, 86; images of, 82 see decision-theoretic image; discourse-theoretic image; hindrances effect on, 73; interpersonal status, 74; intuitively rational, 83; performance, 89; psychological status, 74 humanism: civic, 38, 40, 45, 46; intellectual tools of, 52; ‘legal or merchant’, 52 humanist(s): 20, 35; Ciceronian, 41; civic, 23; model, British break from, 51; tradition, 42, 52; tradition, followers of, 45 Hume, David, 39, 48, 49 humour, 156, 157 identity, cultural component of, 140 illiberalism, 58

170 REPUBLICANISM

Illyria, 13 imagination: 47; government of, 38 immortality, 24 imperial: age of luxury and corruption, 42; historians, 10 see Tacitus; Seneca; period, 1 income and wealth, distribution of, 111 independence: 38, 52; moral, 62 independent: civil society, 66; rights, 62 individual(s): the, 23, 54, 56, 65; ambitions, 46; autonomy, 56; courage, 46; decisions of, 22; domination, defence against, 59; democratic, 61; equal, 70; equal right-bearers, 69; equality preventing freedom of, 66; free, 69; freedom, 52, 54, 59, 60, 66, 70, 123, 147; freedom, and the law, 56; independence, 56; initiative, 56; interests of the, 42 ; liberal project of liberating the, 66; liberty, 66; ‘manliness’, 46; natural rights, protection of, 52; rights, 52, 55, 64, 108, 141, 146; rights, endowing with, 60; rights, against particular interests, 61; rights-bearing, 59; participation in the public sphere, 51; the possessive, 38; respect for the, 115; social origin and chance, affect of, 57; status of, 6 individualism: 52; exacerbated, 142;

liberal, 141; liberal normative, 145; liberal vocabulary of, 38; moral, 137; normative, 150 individualist moral order, 41 individuals: equality of, 161; liberty of, 160, 161 inequality: 44, 54, 59, 70; in influence, 54; of resources, 58 influence(s): discursive, 90; inequality in, 54; non-discursive, 90 inheritance laws, 40 institutional cosmopolitanism: 142, 148; liberal approach to, 144–51 institutional: interference, 124; republicanism, 152 institutions: 3, 123, 134; divine, 11; efficiency of, 39; free, 52; international, 146; political, 121, 125, 129; power of, 133; primary goal of, 2; public, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66; public, intervention of, 65; reactivating liberty, 128; republican, 134; republican model of political, 124; state, 66 instrumentality: 73, 74, 77; interpersonal, 74, 75; psychological, 74, 75; situational, 74, 75 intellectual(s): 25, 26;, public, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31; republican, 31 interest(s): 39; common, 55, 61, 63, 79, 92; individual, 41; landed, 43; local, 57;

INDEX 171

moneyed, 43; national, 45; partial, 57; particular, 55, 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64; personal, 44, 49; private, 42, 44, 52; private, 55, 56, 57, 63; public, 44 interference: 1, 2, 77, 101, 105, 107, 121, 127, 129; absence of, 110; acts of, 78; arbitrary, 78, 88, 99, 113, 120, 122; conceptual distinctions and forms of, 115; institutional, 124; non-arbitrary, 79, 92, 93, 114; state of, 59, 60; the idea of, 122 intermediary: classes, 49; powers, 49, 67; public, 59 international: order, 135; relations, democratisation of, 144–5; relations, ethical issues stemming from, 135 interpersonal relations, 78, 81 ‘invisible hand’, the, 39, 46 see also ‘hidden hand’ mechanisms irrationality, 47 isonomia, 41 Italian: Renaissance, 23; republics, 38 Italy, 8 Ithaka, 29 ius see justice

review, 61 judiciary: 64; powers, 40 Julian, 19 Jupiter, 13 juridicial status, 67, 68 jurisprudence: 17, 63; Roman, 15 jurisprudential paradigm, 102 jurists: 15, 17; imperial, 18 just: cause, 22; consequences, 125; laws, 105, 113, 115, 117; laws, and good intentions, 113; means, 22; society, 121; war, 22 justice (ius): 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 26, 33, 38, 63, 125; agreement regarding (consensu iuris), 9; bonds of (vincula iuris), 9; distributive, 141; distributive, global, 147; global, 135, 142, 144; of commerce, 53; of luxury, 53; principles of, 135, 143; Roman, 18; Roman citizens’ claim to, 6 Justin, 16

Jefferson, Thomas, 29 Jesus, 14 judgement, theory of, 48 judgements, 83 judges, 63, 64 judicial: activism, 64;

Lactantius: 2, 5–20; and Cicero, 1; connections between Roman and Christian law, 14; definition of republic, 5; Divine Institutes 11, 12, 13, 14, 19; political writings, 1

Kagan, Donald, 32 Kant, Immanuel, 144 king, the: 43, 50, 67; victory over privileged orders, 68 Kymlicka, Will, 57, 65, 66

172 REPUBLICANISM

land ownership, 38, 45 landed: interest, 43; ownership, 43 lands, noble, 43 Larmore, Charles, 3 law(s): 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 40, 41, 44, 50, 54, 59, 60, 62, 69, 70, 79, 92, 99, 109, 123; abuse of power of, 46; agrarian, 40, 41; and individual freedom, 56; and liberty, 100; as abridgement of liberty, 112; Christian, 14, 15, 16, 17; Christian conception of divine, 15; civil, 11, 129; divine, 14, 17, 18; domestic, 81; egalitarian and democratically enforced, 56; elaboration of, 51; encroachments of, 69; eternal and unalterable, 9; fear of, 7; freedom by, 56; freedom from, 56; freedom, unitary with, 110; function of the, 45; good, 40; guarantees status as free and equal citizens, 114; human, 14; inheritence, 40; institutions, 56; intervention of, 65; just, 99, 105, 113, 115, 117; just, and good intentions, 113; master-servant, 81; natural, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19; natural, Christian perspective on, 14; obey, 18; of God, 16; private domination, mastering of, 59; religious, 12; rights against, 61; Roman, 15, 16, 17, 97; Roman and Christian, connections between, 14;

romanisation of Christian, 14; rule of, 23, 69, 103; sumptuary, 41 Law, John, 42, 47 lay: persons, 28; public, 28 legal: crises, 19; status, 81 legislation: 63; anti-monopoly, 113; centralised, 69 legislative, 62 legislators, 115 legislature, 61, 62 legitimacy, 57 legitimate goods, 3 Leviathan see Hobbes liberal: 2, 3, 24; allegiance, cosmopolitan ideal of, 136; alternative, 2; arguments, 60; conception of freedom, 3, 72; cosmopolitanism, 138, 142, 144, 149; cosmopolitans, 142; creed, 39; defence of merchant order, 52; democracy, 136, 139, 141, 149, 160; egalitarians, 66; historiography, 38; individualism, 141; intellectual universe, 60, 65; philosophy, of English-speaking world, 60; philosophy, of politics and society, 60; political approach, 66; political legitimacy, principle of, 116; political philosophy, 59, 66; political tradition, 60; principles, and republican freedom, 113; project of liberating the individual, 66; public spirit?, 52; society, 56, 64, 65; state, 148; theory, and Montesquieu, 51; thinkers, 107, 117;

INDEX 173

thought, vs republican thought, 110; tradition, 3, 52, 107, 116; tradition, founded by Locke, 108; tradition, freedom in, 110; tradition, modern, 106; view of society and politics, 57; vocabulary of individualism, 38; writers, 59 liberalism: 1, 2, 25, 38, 72, 107, 136, 143, 148, 152, 171; and republicanism, relationship between, 2; Anglo- American philosophical, 57, 58; based on Locke’s theory, 52; cardinal principle of, 116; cosmopolitarian, 137; definition of, 52; theoretical constructs of, 52–3; versus republicanism, 39, 52 Liberals, the, 23 liberals: 88; classical, 93; deliberative democrats, 161 libertarian discourse, 65 libertas see liberty liberties, 67 liberty (libertas): 6, 9, 10, 18, 19, 28, 29, 38, 46, 49, 55, 58, 59, 65, 66, 67, 68, 121, 127, 131, 134; and freedom, 100; and law, 100; and license, 108; and self- rule, 100; as a dominant good, 130–1; as freedom regulated by law, 44; as non- domination, 49, 55, 59, 97, 120, 122, 123, 125–6, 128, 129–32, 143, 147, 150; as non-interference, 49, 122, 123, 126, 147; civil, 54; conditions of, 46; conceptions of, 82; democratic, 9; denoting status of individual, 6; descriptive, 65; equality, connection with, 64;

goods, on par with, 130; individual, 66; local infringements on, 4; maximisation of, 126; maximising, 130; maximising, as part of bundle of goods, 129–30; maximising, as pre- requisite for other goods, 132; maximising, as search for warrants for freedom, 132–4; maximising, seen as an absolute, 131; modern, 55; moral value of, 131; negative, 1, 2, 3, 51, 104, 121, 131; normative, 65; of commerce, 53; of individuals, 161; of luxury, 53; of the citizen, 6; of the moderns, 49; monarch, versus, 68; overall increase in, 4; perfect, 126; philosophical, 44; political, 1, 46, 97, 104, 111, 162; positive, 51, 77, 121; power, confusion with, 61; priority of, 110, 111; reactivated, by citizens, 128; reactivated, by institutions, 128; republican, 1, 120, 121–4; republican, conception of, 126; republican eschewal of negative, 3; republican, idea of, 93; republican, theory of, 128; rival understandings of, 2; Roman citizens’ claim to, 6; three concepts of, 97 libido dominationis see Rome, preChristian, lust for domination license, and liberty, 108 Licinius, 11 life: 11; non-collective, 69 Lincoln, Abraham, 28–9; speech to 148th Ohio Regiment, 28–9 linguistic homogeneity, 142

174 REPUBLICANISM

Linklater, Andrew, 137 literature: classical Athenian, 26; influence of persecution on, 12 lobbies, 57, 61 local interests, 57 Lochner, case of, 64 Locke, John, 44, 52, 58, 84, 108, 109; Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 110; Second Treatise of Government, 108–9 logic, 156 London Journal, 43, 50 lower classes, 45 luxury: 42, 43, 44, 45, 46; abolition of, 45; justice of, 53; liberty of, 53 Machiavelli, Nicolo: 23, 39, 40, 47, 100, 105; Discourse/Discorsi, 41, 101 Maclure, Jocelyn, 168 Macrobius, 10 Madevillian scheme, the, 46 magistrates: 6, 7, 19, 41; fear of law, 7; fear of public opinion, 7 Mai, Angelo, 9 majority rule, 149 Mandeville, 45 manners, 52 manufacturing, 44 market self-regulation, 145 marriage, types of, 11 martial asceticism, 45 martyrs, 16 Marx, Karl, 159 Marxism, 140 master-servant law, 81 material comfort, 131 Matthew (New Testament), 14 Maupéou, Chancellor, 67 maximisation, principle of, 131 maximising logic, 4 media conglomerates, 28 Melian Dialogue of 416, 28

Melians, 28 Melon, 45 merchant(s), 42, 44 merchant/mercantile societies, 39, 52 merit, new elite of, 43 Messana, 6 metals, precious, 48 Middle Ages, 19 military: challenges, 10; republics, 46; violence, 49; virtues, 42 Mill, John Stuart, 108 Miller, David, 137–44, 151 Mirandola, Pico della, 20 misdemenours, 41 misogyny, 33 mob rule, 23, 32 mobility: 41; of property, 49; social, 42 modern: citizens, 63; democracy, 24, 52, 60, 63; democratic life, 57; freedom, 60; liberty, 55; society, 44, 61 moderns: distance from ancients, 43; liberty of, 49, 109 monarchical: centralised power, 67; power, 68 monarchy: 45, 49, 67, 68; absolute, 67; civil society, versus, 68; constitutional, 39, 46; distance from republics, 43; French, 51; liberty, versus, 68; misdemenours in, 41; modern, 46; opposition, 68; politics in, 46; private crimes in, 41; traditional, 46;

INDEX 175

transition from republic, 46; transition to despotism, 46 money: new elite of, 43; reign of, 38 moneyed interests, 43 monotheists, Roman, 18 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de: 2, 39; and liberal theory, 51; claimed by liberal and republican tradition, 52; Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, 42, 45; defence of commerce, 52; Esprit des Lois, 39–43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51; influence of Bolingbroke on, 50; Notes sur l’Angleterre, 50; Persian Letters, 42; political philosophy, 52 ‘querelle du luxe’ (quarrel on luxury), 45; Reflexions sur la monarchie universelle, 45; Rica, 47; Specilège, 50; ‘tyrannie d’opinion’ 46; the liberal, 39; the republican, 39 moral(s): choices, 125; conceptions, ‘attractive’, 124; decay, 46; discipline, 46; good, 50; independence, 62; individualism, 137; judgement, 41; order, individualist, 41; policing, 41; principles, 117; pure, 44; reform, 43; republic, 45; responsibility, 63; truth, 157;

universalism, 146; vices, 45; virtue, 53 morality: 45; public, 41 mores: 46, 49; British, 48; corruption of, 45; depository of the (dépôt des mœurs), 40; good, 43 movable goods, 43 municipal privileged bodies, 67 Murdoch, Rupert, 31 Mussolini, Benito, 31 mutual obligations, 138 Mytilean embassy, 34 Mytilene, 27, 34; wartime revolt, 33 Mytileneans, 2, 28, 33, 34 Nadeau, Christian, 3, 4 nation, interest of the, 39 national: citizenship, 138; identity, 142, 143; interest, 136; sovereignty, 149; wealth, 47 nationalism: 136, 137, 138, 142, 171; and republican citizenship, 137–44 nationalist accounts, 4; and republicans’ concept of citizenship, 4 nation-state: 139, 140; evolution from city, 139 natural: law: 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19; law, Christian perspective on, 14; order, 77 nature: 9, 62, 69; state of, 68 negative: freedom, 98, 123, 141; liberty: 1, 2, 3, 51, 104, 121, 131; republican eschewal of, 3 negotiation, 155, 156, 162, 163, 164, 169

176 REPUBLICANISM

negotiations: 167; good-faith, 164 neo-Athenian model, 103 Neo-Harrington: movement, 49; theses, 50; tradition of civic humanism, 38 Neo-Harringtonians, British, 43 neo-liberalism, 142 Neoplatonists, 10 see Macrobius neo-republican thought, 112 neo-republicanism: 138, 144; key notions, 142 neo-Roman: line of thought, 105; thinkers, 106 news, managed, 28 Nicolet, Claude, 6 Nicomedia, 13 nineteenth century, 80 non-arbitrary: government, 92; interference, 79, 93; power, 78, 91, 92 non-collective life, 69 non-democratic state, 59 non-discrimination, 62 non-discursive influences, 90 non-domination: 3, 4, 79, 98, 99, 100, 107, 116; citizens’ interest in, 59; environment of, 133; freedom as, 58, 72, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87, 91; in social and political relationships, 56; liberty as, 59, 97, 120, 122, 123, 125– 6, 128, 129–32, 143, 147, 150; maximisation of, 129; understanding of, 132; value of, 115 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 140 non-interference: 77, 109, 122, 123, 126, 147; and self-rule, 104; freedom as, 3, 72, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 87, 91, 101, 115, 116

non-persons, 75 non-privileged, 68, 69 non-self: 89; boundary with self, 88 normative: liberty, 65; political theories, versus republicanism, 4 Notes sur l’Angleterre see Montesquieu Numerian, 13 obedience, hierarchial, 41 Ober, Josh, 32, 33 obligations: civic, 10, 12; global, 142; of citizens, 18; of citizenship, 16, 17; religious, 10 obstacles, absence of, 112 Octavian see Augustus Odysseus, 29 Old Oligarch, 29 oligarchs: 30; Athenian, 30 oligarchy, 26 Olympia, 28 Olympus, 34 opportunity, equality of, 54, 59, 66 option(s): 73, 75, 76, 83, 88, 90; and associated costs, 75 orator, republican, 32 oratorical personality, cult of, 28 oratory, Athenian, 32 order: natural, 77; social, 77 orders: king’s victory over privileged, 68; society of, 68, 69 Origen of Alexandria, 15; equates Christian with natural law, 15 ownership, mobility of, 39 pagans, polytheistic, 18; monotheistic, 18; hedonistic, 18

INDEX 177

Paley, William, 80, 81, 93 Pangle, Thomas, 39 parlements, 67 Parliament, 159 parliament, 159, 160 parliamentarians, 159 parliamentary democratic representation, 159 partial interests, 57 participation: 121; radical, 25 particular: interests, 55, 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64; interests, individuals’ rights against, 61; rights, 68 partisan spirit, 52 Partitiones oratoriae see Cicero partriotism, 38 passion(s): 47; free, 49; government of, 38 Patriot King, 47 patriot(s): 156, 158, 159, 164, 170; modern, 155, 163, 165 patriotic: deliberation, 4; politics, 155; sentiments, 40 patriotism, 43, 164 Paul, Saint, 16 peace, 49 Peloponnesian ultimatum, 27 Peloponnesian War, 26, 27, 31 Peloponnesian Wars, 2 penalties, 92 people, the (populus): 9, 10, 32, 68, 159, 170; as umpires on questions of principle, 64; the Athenian, 32; corruption of a, 47; deliberative and judiciary powers to, 40; freedom of the, 93; modern concept, 68; the sovereignty of, 52; will of, 61 Pericles, 2, 23, 27, 31, 34, 35;

‘Funeral Oration’, 27 persecution, 15; Decian, 16; edicts of, 17; Galerius, attempt to repeal, 17; Valerian, 16 see also Great Persecution; and literature, 12 Persia, 10 Persian Letters see Montesquieu Persian nobles, 42 personal: freedom, 60; interest, 44, 49; passions, repression of, 44; rights, 58 persons: protection of, 56; respect for, 117 Pettit, Philip, 1, 3, 4, 22, 34, 55, 97, 98, 99104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116–17, 120, 121–2, 123 129, 134, 136, 143, 148, 149, 150, 152; analysis of domination, 112–13; and contestatory democracy, 4; and liberalism, 107; and republicanism, 4; conception of deliberation, 4; consequentialism, 3; ‘neo-Athenian’ republican thought, 101, 112; ‘neo- Roman’ self-government, 101; republican concerns, 117; republican model, 116; republican theory, 115; Republicanism, 1, 3, 105 Philip, 26 philosopher-kings, 32 philosophers: 24; French, 54 philosophical: debates, 1; liberty, 44; reason, 63 phronesis (practical wisdom), see Aristotle; Aristotelian heritage pietas see piety

178 REPUBLICANISM

piety (pietas), 14, 18 Plataea, 28 Plato, 30, 32; Republic, 30 pleasure: arts of, 45; private, 42 plural: citizenship, 138; sovereignty, 146 pluralism: 52, 168; and freedom, 103 pluralistic societies, 50 Pocock, J.G.A., 38, 39, 40, 52101; The Machiavellian Moment, 38, 101; ‘Virtues, Rights and Manners’, 101–2 Pogge, Thomas, 145–6 policies, 4 polis, the, 24 politeiai see political communities political: autonomy, 51; challenges, 10; communities (politeiai), 16; conversation, 166; culture, 55, 58; culture, French, 55, 60; culture, free and combatative, 25; deliberation, 115; duties, 50; equality, 26; freedom, 44, 46, 49, 57, 98, 103, 117; institutions, 56, 121, 125, 129; legitimacy, liberal principle of, 116; liberty, 1, 46, 97, 104, 111, 162; life, 57; liberty, republican concept of, 121; life, 102; mobilisation, 140; parties, 51; philosophers, 53; philosophy, 81; philosophy, liberal, 59; political philosophy, of Montesquieu, 52; power, 49, 69; power, central, 69; power, equal participation in, 41;

power, independence from, 68; power, participation in, 46; process, 62; questions, 11; realm, 24; regulation, 66; relationships, non-domination in, 56; responsibility, 63; society, 69, 99; society, French, 67; system, representative, 52; theorists, French, 67; theory, modern, 39; thought, 82; thought, contemporary, 87; thought, Roman, 5; theories, normative, 1; violence, 49; virtue, 43, 46; voice, 112 politics: 24, 38, 51, 58, 61, 62; Anglos-Saxon conception of, 57; Anglo-Saxon model of, 59; constitutional, 61, 62; contemporary, 23; democratic, 57, 64; law-centred vision of, 54; liberal philosophy of, 60; liberal view of, 57; poll-driven, 28; principled and constitutional, 63; republican conception of, 60; republican, French conception of, 57 polytheists, 17, 18; see also pagans Pompey, 9 poor, the, 23 popular sovereignity, 23 populism, 27 populus see people, the positive: freedom, 100, 104; liberty, 51, 77, 121 possibilities, 98 post-modernist political thought, 171 poverty, 45 power: 26; abuse of, 44, 49, 59, 66;

INDEX 179

and domination, 132; and free individual, 69; access to, 38; arbitrary, 78, 91, 93, 117, 124, 126, 127, 128; balance of, 51; be in another’s, 91; broad, 122; central political, 69; centralised, 69; centralised monarchial, 67; direct participation in, 51; equal, 58; equal participation in political, 41; equality of, 55; hierarchies of, 142; in relation to others, 93; independent from, 67; liberty, confusion with, 61; measure in commercial wealth, 45; modern forms of, 46; monarchical, 68; non-arbitrary, 78, 91; non-publicly authorised, 68; of entering into discursive relations, 93; of the law, 46; origin of, 68; political, 49, 69; political, independence from, 68; political, participation in the, 46; private, 58, 59, 69, 70; proximity to, unequal, 54; psychological, 90; ratiocinative and relational, 90; republican line on exposure to arbitrary, 92; Roman, 8; sociological, 90; speak truth to, 91; subordinated to constitutional monarchy, 39 powerful, the: 91; concerns of, 116; goodwill of, 114 powers: abolition of intermediary, 46; intermediary, 67;

separation of, 50 Pravda, 28 preference, degrees of, 82, 83 press, freedom of the, 50 pressure groups, 57 Prince, obedience to, 46 principle: 63; questions of, 64 private: associations, 56; domination, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 69, 70; interest(s), 44, 52, 55, 56, 57, 63; interest, rehabilitation of, 42; pleasure, 42; power, 58, 59, 69, 70; privilege, 59; realm, 52; vices, 45; wealth, 58 privilege: 68; private, 59 privileged, 68, 69 privileges: 69; of citizenship, 16 probability, degree of, 83 professionalism, 28 professionals, 115 profit, reign of, 47 progressive taxation, 54 propaganda, 25 property: balance of, 43; mobility of, 49; protection of, 56; protection and disposability of, 102 prosperity, promotion of, 2–3 provincial: cities, 15, 16; families, 15; privileged bodies, 67 psychology: folk, 83; human, 84 public: 25, 26; action, 65, 66; agency, 69; agency, centralised, 70; awareness, 51;

180 REPUBLICANISM

credit, 46–9; culture, cosmopolitan, 140; debate, 2; debt, 46 , 47, 48; dialogue, 2; educated, the, 11; freedom, 46 ; funds, debate on use, 46; global, 142; institutions, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66; institutions, intervention of, 65; institutions, republican conception of, 55; intellectual(s): 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33; interest, 29, 44; intervention, 58, 59; intervention, freedom by, 55; intervention from, 55; lay, 28; life, 23, 24, 52, 121; morality, 41; opinion, fear of, 7; republican, 31; space, 26, 32, 34; speech, 2, 22; speech, during time of war, 22; speech workers, 31; sphere: 2, 24, 25, 28, 29, 32, 35, 55, 165–6, 168, 169; sphere, electronically controlled, posttotalitarian, 25; sphere, freedom of, 25; sphere, Greek notion of, 25; sphere, individual participation in, 51; sphere, republican, 28; spirit, 2, 52; spirit, republican or liberal?, 52; values, 41; virtues, 45; pundits, 28 pure morals, 44 Quakers, 91 ‘querelle du luxe’ (quarrel on luxury) (Montesquieu), 45 radical:

democracy, 25; participation, 25 Ranaissance, 38 ranks, confusion of, 42 rational: choice, 165; self-interest, 52 rationality: 47, 164; conditions of, 83; demands of, 87; economic, 81; intuitive conditions of, 83; psychological constraints on, 87; self-interested, 49 Rawls, John: 11, 23, 58, 110, 112; A Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism, 112; liberty, priority of, 110, 111 Rawlsian language, 54 reason: 22, 62, 89, 90; practical, conception of, 165 reconciliation, 163, 167, 168, 170 Réflexions sur la monarchie universelle see Montesquieu Regency, 47 regime: constitutional, 23; republican, 23; transformation, 2 regionalism, 139 regulation, social and political, 66 Reichstaag, 159 relativism, 26 religio see cult religion: choice of, 19; spirit of, 18 religious: beliefs, 18; challenges, 10; conscience, 112; crisis, 19; duties, 10; homogeneity, 142; law, 12; obligations, 10; observance, public, and good citizenship, 18;

INDEX 181

questions, 11; societies, 50 Renaissance: 19, 39; Italian, 23 representative: assemblies, 61; political system, 52; system, 51 repression, 33 Republic (Plato), 30 republic: 26; condemned to corruption, 44; corrupted, 43; corruption of, 41; democratic, 33; democratic, theory of, 22; distance from monarchies, 43; during time of war, 22; hides behind monarchy, 49; hiding behind a royal mask, 49; the ideal, 12; the ideal: a Christian framework, 12; the ideal: legal and logical foundations, 12; republic, luxury in, 42; moral, 45; security of, 41; supervision of the, 40; survival of the, 38–9; theory of, 40; tradition, 52; transition to monarchy, 46; will to return to original principles, 46 republican: 29; Anglo-Saxon, model, 66; ‘canon’, 1; citizen, 4; citizenship, 138, 142, 143, 151; citizenship, and nationalism, 137–44; citizenship, conception of, 138, 141; civic virtues, 143; classical, 155, 165; conception of freedom, 3, 82, 91; conception of politics, 60; conception of public institutions, 55; cosmopolitanism, 144;

deliberative democratic theory, use of, 4; discourse, 52; fears of economic expansion, 38; freedom, 126, 134; freedom, and consequentialism, 125–9; freedom, and liberal principles, 113; French, conception, 70; French, law- and state-centred, 66; French model, 63; French, tradition, 59; insistence on civic virtue, 2; institutions, 2, 40, 134; liberty, 1, 120, 121–4; liberty, conception of political, 121; liberty, eschewal of negative, 3; liberty, idea of, 93; liberty, theory of, 128; line on exposure to arbitrary power, 92; model, ancient, 39; model, of political institutions, 124; model, Pettit’s, 116; regime, 23; orator, 32; public agency’s agenda, 55; public sphere, 28; public spirit?, 52; regimes, 34; rhetoric, 28, 29; Roman tradition, 22; Rome, 2; soft line, 92; state, 143; thinkers, 117; tradition, 1, 44, 52; tradition, sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury, 97; vs liberal, 106–12; vs normative political theories, 4; vivere civile, 39; warnings, mixing of virtue and commerce, 46 republicanism: 2, 136, 137, 142, 143, 148, 150; American experience of, 39; and consequentialism, 4; and liberalism, relationship between, 2; as theoretical alternative, 1;

182 REPUBLICANISM

classical, 155; compatibility with cosmopolitan citizenship, 4; conception of deliberation, 4; contemporary revival of, 2; cosmopolitan, 152; defined by Cicero, 2; definition of, 52; developing, 1; dissociation from value monism, 53; English, 39; French conception of, 3; historical credentials, 4; identification of, 3; institutional, 152; modern, 2; modern theorists of, 23; normative foundation for, 120; theoretical constructs of, 52–3; versus liberalism, 39,52 Republicanism see Pettit Republicans, 44 republicans: 2, 3, 28, 88, 92, 93; classical, 23, 162, 163; concept of citizenship, 4; criticise mobility of property, 49; democratic, 29; Roman, 79; traditional, 79 republics: 41, 45; commercial, 44; foreign, 8; military, 46; modern, 44 res publica: 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 55; and its gods, 16; Christian, 15; Christian version of Cicero’s, 18; Cicero’s definition of, 9; foundations of Roman, 17; ideal, 18; relationship with citizens, 19; Roman, 12, 15, 19; see also commonwealth; Roman republic resources: 65; equality of, 54, 65, 66;

equality of, in Dworkian sense, 65; inequalities of, 58; liberal, 65; redistribution of, 66 respect: 116; and domination, 112–17; for persons, 117 responsibility: 65; moral and political, 63 retaliation, 79 ‘return to principles’, 43 rhetoric: 28, 31, 32, 33; attack on, 28; democratic, 29; illiberal, 28; republican, 28, 29 rhetorical tricks, 28 rhetoricians, 31 Rhine, 10 Rica see Montesquieu rich, the, 23 Ricœur, Paul, 167 Riefenstahl, Leni, 28 right reason, 9 right-bearers: 69; equal individual, 69; see also right-bearing individuals rights: 19, 55, 59, 63, 64, 68, 69, 112; against the law, 61; and general will, 62; basic human, 146; bundle of, 2; citizen as monadic claimant of, 138; citizens’, 19, 147; citizens’, protection of, 45; collective, 146; conscience, 102; culture of, 57; endowing individuals, 60; enjoyment without interference, 51; equality of, 54–5; free association, 102; global, 142; independent, 62; individual, 52, 55, 64, 108, 141, 144, 146; individual natural, protection of, 52;

INDEX 183

individuals against particular interests, 61; individuals against particular interests, 61; language of, 102; majority group, 147; minority group, 147; of Roman citizens, 6; origin of, 68; particular, 68; personal, 58; point of having, 63; protection of, 38; social, 54; specific, 68; universal, basic, 150–1; universal, human, 150–1; unequal, 67; unions, 54; vocabulary of, 132, 133 rights-bearing individuals, 59; see also right-bearers right-wing extremists, 129 Rio Conference of the Environment, 140 Roman: ancient history, 43, 45; citizens: 6, 7, 8, 15; citizens, claim to justice, 6; citizens, claim to liberty, 6; citizens, rights and freedoms of, 6; citizenship, 6, 15, 16, 17; cult, 16, 17; empire, 7, 16, 17; empire, Christian citizens of, 15, 17; empire, free inhabitents, 16; gods, 15; imperial model, 45; jurisprudence, 15; justice, 18; law(s), 15, 16, 17, 97; monotheists, 18; people, 5, 7; political thought, 5; poverty, 42; power, 8; provinces, 8; republic (res republica), 5, 6, 9, 10; republic, government of, 8;

republic, health of and citizenship, 8–9; republic, preservation of, 12; republic, responsibilities, 10; republic, roles of, 10; republic, undermined by Verres, 8; republic, viability of, 6; republicans, 79; republican tradition, 22; society, 17; state, 19 Romans: 7, 10, 16, 18, 19, 23; definition of the polity, 5; gods of, 16; heroic virtues and martial discipline of, 42 Rome: 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 22; citizen body, 9; pre-Christian, 19; pre-Christian, lust for domination (libido dominationis), 19; pre-Christian, love of praise (amor laudis), 19; republican experiment, 2; res publica, 19; Senate, 5; war and rhetoric, 22 Romulus, 31 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 59, 105–6 Rule of Law, 123 rulers, high principles and public spirit of, 39 ruling class, corrupted by money, 47 Saluttatti, Coluccio, 23 salvation, 11 Sandel, Michael, 65, 101; Democracy’s Discontent, 65 Saturn, 13 Saward, M., 146 Schmitt, Carl, 25 Scipio, 9 Scott, Dred, 64 second century, 16 Second Treatise of Government, see Locke security, 131 self: the, 89;

184 REPUBLICANISM

boundary with non-self, 88; liberation from the, 25; notion of the, 88 self-determination, 88, 89 self-discipline, 44 self-government: 23, 101, 102; and freedom, 100–3; democratic, 97, 98, 104, 108 self-interest: 29, 46; enlightened, 164; rational, 52 self-interested rationality, 49 self-rule: 101, 102; and liberty, 100; and non-interference, 104; democratic semantics, 156 Senate: 5, 41; end of rule of, 1–2 senatorial: politics, 5; rule, 5 Seneca, 10 seventeenth century: 91, 97, 102 seventeenth-century thinkers, 102 shame, 32 Shklar, Judith, 39 Sicilian, Greek-speaking, 7 Sicily, 5, 8 Sidney, Algernon, 97, 102 Sirens, 34 sixteenth century, 97 sixty-second spots, 28 Skinner, Quentin, 22, 38, 39, 40, 52, 104, 105, 106, 107; neo-republican thought, 112 slavery, abolition of, 30 slaves: 8, 24, 26, 97; Athenian, 30; integration of, 139 Smith, Adam, 46 social: actions, 126; bond, dissolution of, 42; capital, 24; circumstances, 4; contract, 68;

cooperation, 61, 65, 140, 141, 146–7, 152; Darwinism, 57; forces, 82; justice, 107, 124; life, consumerist approach to, 103; order, 77; origin, 57; mobility, 42; order, 43; regulation, 66; relationships, non- domination in, 56; resources, 58, 65; rights, 54; science, contemporary, 82; status, 81; thought, 82; thought, contemporary, 87; ties, dissolution of, 412 socialism, 1, 171 socialist thought, 56 society: civil, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 67, 69, 165, 170; civil, 159, 160, 165, 169, 170; civil, domain of, 166, 168; civil, independent, 66; civil, versus monarchy, 68; free, 56, 65, 102; hierarchical, 67; just, 121; least advantaged section of, 57; liberal, 64, 65; liberal philosophy of, 60; liberal view of, 57; make no value judgements, 66; modern, 61; non-liberal, 139; of equal citizens, 68; of orders, 68, 69; political, 69, 99; without domination, 117 Socrates, 26 soldier-citizen, 49; see also citizen-soldier soldier-emperors, 10 soldiers, 22 Sophists, 25

INDEX 185

sound bites, 28 sovereignty: differentiated and cosmopolitan democracy, 145–8; differentiated, theory of, 152; national, 149; plural, 146; state 149 Spanish revolt, 6 Sparta: 22, 27, 28, 45; Athen’s surrender to, 30 Spartan assembly, 27 Spartans, 28 specific rights, 68 Spectator, 47 Spector, Céline, 2 speculation, propensity for, 47 Spicilège (Montesquieu), 50 spin doctors, 28 Spitz, Jean-Fabien, 3, 120 state(s): the, 9, 12, 13, 23, 39, 51, 54, 58, 61, 81, 116, 159, 160, 165, 170, 171; and distribution of power within, 45; and education, 12; authority of the, 55; Christian, 19; contemporary, 139; domain of, 166, 168; domination, attempts to block, 134; economic power of, 45; Hobbesian theory of, 108; ideal, 9, 19; ideal: the constitution of, 11; ideal: its laws, 11; institutions, 66, 160; interference, 56, 59, 60; intervention, 56; intervention, freedom from, 56; liberal, 148; make no value judgements, 66; minimal, 57; non-democratic, 59; obligation of, 133; role in promoting equality, 3; potent, 69;

power, 114; proper function of, 54; reform of the, 12; regulations, 115; republican, 143; Roman, 19; small, 44; social movements, co-option by, 169; sovereignty, 136, 149; world, 148 state-civil society conversations, 170 state-run economy, downsizing of, 56 status: discursive, 90, 91, 92, 93; legal, 81; social, 81 Sthenelaidas, 27 Strauss, Leo, 2, 12, 31 subliminal messages, 28 subordination, chain of, 41 subsidiarite, principle of, 146 sumptuary laws, 41 Supreme Court see United States, Supreme Court Syracusan assembly, 27 Syracuse, stone quarries, 6 Tacitus, 10 Tatian, 16 taxation, progressive, 54 taxes, 92 terrorism, 30 Tertullian, 16 The Machiavellian Moment see Pocock, J.G.A. The New Yorker, 25 The Origin of Totalitarianism see Arendt The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere see Habermas The Wise Men, 28 Thebans, 28 Theodosius I, 19 thèse parlementaire, 68 thèse royale, 67, 68 Thesmorphia, 24 third century, 10, 15, 16, 18 thirteenth century, 38

186 REPUBLICANISM

Thirty, the see Athenian oligarchs Thomas, F.-N., Clear and Simple as Truth, 29 Thompson, Dennis, 2 Thucydides, 22, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 29, 52, 60, 67 Tory historians, 43 town, traditional small, 24 trade, 8 traditional monarchies, 46 transnational: civil society, 140, 150; issues, 140 travel, 8 treason, 16, 18 treatises, Cicero, 5 Triumvirate, the first, 9 see also Caesar; Pompey; Crassus Truth: 26; moral, 157; plain, 157 truth-telling, conception of, 157 Turner, M., 29 twenty-first century, 58 ‘Two concepts of liberty’ see Berlin tyranny, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 30; ‘tyrannie d’opinion’ 46 ‘tyrannie d’opinion’ (a tyranny of opinion) see Montesquieu tyrants: 19, 31; Greek, 25 Ulpian, 15, 18 Ulysses, 79, 88, 92 unequal rights, 67 Union, the (American), 28 unions: legal protection of, 113; rights, 54 United Nations: 148, 151; General Assembly, 151; reform proposals, 150; Security Council, 151 United States: 57, 159; Congress, 62;

Supreme Court, 61, 62 upper class, 58 utilitarian principle, 125 utilitarianism, 110, 125 utility: 82, 83; expected, 83, 84; function(s), 83, 84; maximise expected, 83 Valerian: 18; Valerian persecution, 16; see also Great Persecution value(s): 1, 92, 129; maximising of, 3 value monism, dissociation from republicanism, 53 Vergil, Aeneid, 13 Verres, Gaius: 5, 6, 7; extortion case, 5; governor of Sicily, 5, 6; neglects Sicily’s laws, 8; supporters, 6; undermines the Roman republic, 8; unlawful behaviour, 7 Verrine Orations see Cicero vice(s): 44; in a democracy, 40–1; moral, 45; private, 45 vincula iuris see justice, bonds of violence: 33; military, 49; political, 49 Viroli, Maurizio: 106, 107, 136, 142; neo- republican thought, 112 virtue(s): 29, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49, 50, 52; appeal to, 3; civic, 39, 10, 121; classical science of, 39; ethics, 124; language of, 102; luxury reverse of, 42; mixing with commerce, 46; political, 43, 46; reviving corrupted, 43; supporters of ancient, 45; military, 42;

INDEX 187

public, 45; turned into manners, 52 ‘Virtues, Rights and Manners’, see Pocock, J.G.A. vivere civile: 41; loss of, 47 voice-overs, 28 voluntas, 19 Waldron, Jeremy, 63 Walpole, Horace: 42; government of, 50; opponents of, 47 war(s): 22; and rhetoric, 22; evolution of the art of, 45; just, 22; management of, 46; rhetoric in Greece, 22; rhetoric in Rome, 22 Wars of Religion, 102 wealth: 18, 42, 44, 45, 48, 58; creation of, 2; equality of, 41; inequality in, 54; national, 47; private, 58; redistribution, 129 welfare state, 58 welfarism, 56 West, the, 11,22 Western: culture, 140; democracy, 25; political thought, mainstream, 54; polities, 161, 162 will: the, 79; arbitrary, 109, 116 Wirszubski, C.H., 6 women, 81 workers, 81, 115 world: citizenship, 137, 152; government, 135, 136, 145, 147; state, 148 worship: 18; outlawing of different forms, 19

WTO, agreements on pharmaceutical patents, 151 Xenophon, 26 Yunis, Harvey, 31, 32 Zeus, 34